Author Description

A harrowing and heart-wrenching memoir of humanitarian aid worker Buchanan's kidnapping by Somali land pirates, her three months in captivity, her rescue by the Navy SEALs, and her husband's extraordinary efforts to help bring her home. In 2006, 27-year-old Jessica Buchanan arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, with long-held dreams of helping to educate African children. By 2009, she had met and married a Swede named Erik Landemalm, who worked to coordinate humanitarian aid with authorities in Africa. They moved to Somalia with hopes of starting a family. Then on October 25, 2011, Jessica and a colleague were kidnapped and held for ransom by a band of Somali pirates. For the next three months, Jessica was terrorized by more than two dozen gangsters, held in filthy conditions, and kept on a starvation diet. Every terrifying moment she spent suffering in captivity was matched by that of her adoring husband working behind the scenes to deal with her captors. After 93 days of fruitless negotiations, and with Jessica's medical state becoming a life-or-death issue, President Barack Obama ordered Navy SEAL Team Six to attempt a rescue. On January 25, 2012, the team of twenty-four SEALs attacked and killed all nine heavily armed hostiles. In riveting detail, this book chronicles Jessica and Erik's mutual journey during those torturous months.