Amanda Matti: Author, Veteran

I'm excited to announce my latest book, A PIECE OF YOUTH, is tentatively scheduled for release in Spring of 2021.  This book is quite the deviation from my normal writing style and subject matter, but it's a project I've been tossing around for many years and feel I'm finally in the right "head space" to do justice to it. It is an autofiction, which combines the elements of autobiography with those of a novel to enable me to create a world very much based on reality and truths, but allows room for creativity and dramatization to develop a more compelling story. Yes, the book is inspired by my own experiences as a teenager coming of age in a rural southern town in the late '90s, and I even use my own name as the main character. I regularly wrote in journals from sixth grade through my high school graduation which I have kept all these years and drew heavily from when writing this book; however, I did utilize the "fiction" liberties of autofiction

Chapter 2 Elora pulled into the parking lot of the CIA headquarters outside Langley, Virginia. Nick followed behind her in his car; the two were coming from Brendan’s funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. Nick had urged Elora to go home after the funeral but she flat-out refused. “If I go home right now and sit alone in my house, I’ll go fucking crazy,” she’d told him. “I want to work—I need to work. I can’t rest until I know the assholes responsible for Brendan’s death are in prison or dead, preferably the latter. The NDU Task Force still has a job to finish. You and I both know Malik Khalid wasn’t killed in the raid. We don’t know for sure if he was even there that night. We still have work to do, and I will not stop until that son of a bitch is brought down.” Nick didn’t have the heart to tell Elora there had already been talk of dissolving the CIA’s NDU Task Force, of which he was the team leader, and Elora, along with three other analysts, were members. “Okay, let’s go to w

Chapter 1 CIA Analyst Elora Monro stood on the tarmac of Dover Air Force Base awaiting the arrival of a C-17 cargo plane bearing the remains of her fiancé, U.S. Army Major Brendan Jacobs. Her friend and colleague, fellow CIA Analyst Nick Hildebrandt, stood next to her. Nick had also been close friends with Brendan, he was even slated to be one of the groomsmen in Elora and Brendan’s upcoming wedding. Now, instead of marrying Brendan, Elora was burying him. She and Nick stared silently off into Delaware’s gray March sky—watching, listening. They heard a low rumble begin to approach from the east and looked up just in time to see the C-17 break through the cloud cover. As the plane dipped its wings to circle the airfield and line up for landing, Nick placed a supportive hand on Elora’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Are you okay?” “Nope,” Elora replied, feeling her chest tighten as she struggled to maintain her composure. Nick didn’t press further but kept his hand on he

The COVID-19 quarantine has put the publishing of my latest book, NEW DAWN UNDERGROUND, on hold, so I have decided to start sharing chapters here on my blog to give my followers (all six of you - LOL) a jump on reading it for FREE! CIA analyst Elora Monro is devastated. Her Delta Force fiancé was just killed during a failed raid on a terrorist compound in northern Iraq. Now, Elora is hellbent on tracking down the mastermind behind the Islamic militant group responsible for her fiancé’s death — the New Dawn Underground. Posing as a Washington Post correspondent, Elora travels to the Middle East and embeds with the New Dawn militants under the guise of helping the group tell their side of the story to Western media. Driven by vengeance, Elora strives to gain enough intel while on the inside to destroy New Dawn from the inside out. Prepared to sacrifice her life to accomplish her mission, Elora is wholly unprepared for the enigmatic Zaidan Al-Sadiq, right-hand-man to the militant group’s