Amanda Matti: Author, Veteran

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...

A Foreign Affair  is a sweeping Iraq War memoir that chronicles the forbidden romance between a female U.S. service member and her Iraqi translator, who meet while serving together on the front lines of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  In the summer of 2005, U.S. Navy intel analyst Amanda Matti deployed to Baghdad to serve as a Foreign Affairs Liaison Officer within the new Iraqi National Intelligence Service. The INIS was established and overseen by the CIA, and Amanda’s mission was to help strengthen relations between the new Iraqi government and U.S. intelligence personnel. A few days after her arrival in country, Amanda was introduced to Fadi, who was assigned to serve as her translator for the duration of her deployment. Over the next few months, Amanda and Fadi forged a close friendship while working round-the-clock together at the INIS building. Three months into Amanda’s deployment, she, Fadi, and a handful of others from their department were sent on a covert forwa...

When I opened my eyes I saw sunlight streaming in through the single window over Elaina’s bed and noticed that she was already gone. I rolled out of bed feeling like I’d been hit by a truck and began rummaging through my luggage for some clothes. One of the guys from my new team knocked on my door around quarter to seven and offered to walk me to the chow hall, a gesture I was thankful for since everything looked totally different in the daylight and I had no clue how to get to breakfast. He introduced himself as Kyle and as we made our way to the chow hall he told me he’d arrived in Iraq three months ago. We met up with the rest of the team at the for breakfast and Tom introduced me to everyone. Aside from Tom, who was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force, and Kyle, who was a Sergeant in the Marine Corps, there were four other guys on the team – Seth, an Army Sergeant; Kevin an Air Force Sergeant; Robert, a retired Naval Reserve Captain; and Josh, a young NSA civilian employee. I wa...

I was scheduled to fly a commercial airline out of DC’s Dulles International Airport to Amman, Jordan with a brief layover in Amsterdam; then continue on to Baghdad via military aircraft after spending a night in Jordan. Shawn drove me to the airport and our "goodbye" reminded me of a scene from one of those sappy romantic movies where the lovers part for what is to be a simple summer abroad but ultimately fall out of touch and never see each other again. “Kick some ass over there girl,” Shawn said as he hugged me. “Take care of yourself and remember, shoot first and ask for forgiveness later.” “I’ll call or email when I can to let you know I made it there okay,” I replied, and then I walked away.        My flight departed relatively on time and shortly after takeoff I got to chit-chatting with my seat mate - a young girl who looked to be about 18. I learned she had just graduated from high school and was on her way to spend the summer in Amste...

So I am beginning to get a little discouraged that we'll never find a publisher willing to take on my book. Millions of books go unpublished every year so it's not like I had my hopes too high anyway. But that is the beauty of the internet - you can publish anything you want anytime for all to see. I decided I'd start making installments with snippets of each chapter of my book to hopefully spur some interest and perhaps encourage a publishing of my memoir "A Foreign Affair". I don't plan on "giving away the entire farm", but enough to hopefully peek interest in any reader who stumbles upon my blog. So, without further ado, here is Snippet #1 - enjoy. “Sometimes, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairytale.” - Anonymous You live only once. You breathe in. You breathe out. The days go by, each seeming like a replica of the one before, but it isn't. You will never see the day you just lived again. It is gone ...

Well, it's the final countdown. In less than 96 hours the family and I will bid goodbye to our middle-America life here in Ohio and begin our journey to southern California. Like the Joads in "The Grapes of Wrath", we hope to find a brighter future and more opportunity in the golden state - specifically in the San Diego area. We aren't exactly leaving behind the Depression era dust-bowl existence the leading family in Steinbeck's masterpiece escaped from, but the economic atmosphere in southern Ohio isn't exactly conducive to those looking to prosper in these tough times. I also get the notion that Fadi and I are perhaps simply nomadic by nature. Considering I haven't lived in my native Florida since "escaping" at age 17 in 2000, and Fadi has been displaced from his native continent for six years now, moving and starting over in a foreign land is nothing new to either of us. We do feel a little guilty about uprooting our six-year-old daughter -...