The Conflicted Bride (Rosie Winterbourne Thriller) - Softcover

Rothery, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798235240087

Publisher: Weatherdeck Books, 2026

Synopsis

The Conflicted Bride

Rosie Winterbourne was trained to follow orders. But when Michael McCaffey-her closest friend and the one person who still knows who she was before intelligence work stripped the softness from her-is kidnapped in Libya, obedience becomes impossible.

Michael has vanished in the ruined town of El Habar, a place held together by hunger, gunfire and fear. He was trying to help Astrid, a Swedish nurse, reach Greta Maloof: a teenage jihadi bride caught in the brutal machinery of fanaticism. To the men hunting her, Greta is property, propaganda and proof. To Astrid, she is still a girl worth saving. To Rosie, she becomes the reason a rescue mission turns into something far more dangerous.

Rosie's search pulls her from Gibraltar into the shadows of North Africa, where a covert pipeline is moving European extremists back towards the West. At the centre of it stands Leviticus Danilenco: polished, brilliant and impossible to trust. He offers help with a smile, speaks in half-truths, and seems to know far more than any ally should. Russian intelligence, jihadist networks and Western secrets all coil around him like wire.

Rosie knows he is using her.

She may have to use him back.

Drawn aboard a Russian vessel bound for the Libyan coast, Rosie joins an uneasy rescue operation with motives buried beneath motives. Spetsnaz soldiers prepare for combat. Intelligence officers trade favours like ammunition. Leviticus hints at defection, betrayal and information that could tear open the people Rosie serves. Everyone wants something from El Habar. Not everyone intends to leave witnesses behind.

Inside the besieged town, the lines between victim, believer, rescuer and enemy begin to blur. Astrid's desperate hope of saving Greta collides with the reality of radicalisation. Michael's life hangs by a thread. Rosie is forced to make choices no training exercise could prepare her for, in a place where mercy can be fatal and loyalty is just another weapon.

The deeper she goes, the less certain she becomes of who is truly manipulating the mission. Is Leviticus a traitor, a survivor, or something worse? Are the Russians there to rescue their own, or to bury evidence? And why does every secret seem to point not only to Moscow and Daesh, but towards corruption closer to home?

Gritty, tense and morally bruising, The Conflicted Bride is an espionage thriller about friendship under fire, ideology without mercy, and the cost of stepping outside the rules. Rosie enters Libya determined to bring Michael home.

But war zones do not return people unchanged.

About this title

About the Author

'"Write about what you know and write truly" was the rule Ernest Hemingway (my 15th cousin, according to ancestry.com) lived by. He believed in utilizing personal experiences and true emotions to make a story believable. And that's what informs my own writing. You don't need to know the sea to be swept away by it. My thrillers are not written for sailors alone. They are written for anyone who loves suspense, danger, strong characters, and stories that pull you irresistibly onward. Because it's what I know, the maritime world provides the setting, but it is never a barrier: the language is clear, the stakes are human, and the drama is universal. You won't need a chart, a glossary, or any nautical experience to follow the story-only a taste for tension, intrigue, and adventure. '

Michael Rothery

Michael Rothery is a lifelong writer whose fiction is shaped by decades at sea. He began writing poems and letters long before turning to full-length fiction in 2012. He served twenty-five years in the Royal Navy, gaining extensive operational and maritime experience that now underpins the realism of his novels.

Alongside his writing career, he qualified as a yachtmaster and worked for a time on yacht deliveries. In 2015, he bought a sailing yacht in Greece and sailed solo to the Caribbean via the Atlantic Islands. He went on to cruise the Lesser Antilles for several years before crossing to the Azores. In 2024, he sold his boat and came ashore, bringing with him a lifetime of naval service, blue-water sailing, and firsthand maritime knowledge that informs every aspect of his writing.

Edition details

• Publisher: Weatherdeck Books
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798235240087
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 356