Stolen: Escape from Syria

In the vein of Not Without My Daughter, Stolen: Escape from Syria is a memoir recounting a mother's crusade to rescue her kidnapped daughter from her abusive ex-husband during the tumultuous days of the Arab Spring

In the middle of one of the worst civil wars in Syria's history, Louise Monaghan walked across a heavily guarded border to save her six-year-old child from the father who had callously snatched her from her home in Cyprus. Fearing for her daughter's future under the oppressive Sharia law, the Irish mother returned to her ex-husband, Mostafa Assad, to bide her time until she could escape with her daughter.

Once in his homeland, she too was held captive, locked inside a run-down house with little food and no hope of deliverance. Severely beaten by Mostafa ―she was even left unconscious on the ground in front of their child―she and her little girl miraculously escaped.

This suspenseful account will pull at your heartstrings, enveloping you in harrowing events that no mother would dare imagine and culminating with the triumphal feats this mother achieved. Smuggled across a heavily patrolled mountain range in the dead of night through bomb attacks and sniper fire, Monaghan and her daughter speak to the transcendent bond between mother and child.