Praise for A Foreign Affair by Amanda Matti
In a different kind of Romeo and Juliet, Amanda Matti’s memoir, A Foreign Affair reads more like a novel than a true account. Written in first person, we view the world through a young Navy woman’s perspective with humor, courage, amazement, discovery, charity, hope, and, of course, love. Amanda’s determination to shake up her mundane life and to escape a hopeless relationship leads her to Iraq on a volunteer mission for the NSA and into a battle taking place in her heart, not in the war zone. When Amanda first arrives at her new home away from home, she sets eyes on an Iraqi national who is an interpreter working for the Americans, but there are rules. Dating or becoming involved with an Iraqi is frowned upon and discouraged, but love doesn’t play by anyone’s stipulations or control.
Amanda and Fahdi soon find themselves in a twisted set of circumstances where misinterpretation and false judgments place them in a legal quandary involving espionage charges. Their story grips you in a vice of nerves, wondering if Amanda and Fahdi will survive not just the danger of a country in turmoil, but their own crusade against two government entities who install every obstacle to keep these two apart…wondering whether their ending will end like Shakespeare’s tragedy or triumph with a new beginning. When I closed this book, it took me a minute to remind myself this story was real, not a Hollywood master plot.
— Linda Kasten, author of Castle of Cards and literary agent