I was recommended this book by a friend who told me I'd not regret reading it and that it was the best book she'd read in years.It's the story of war correspondent and her travels through the war zones of the world in the last 20 years. At first I thought it was an autobiography, it reads so true, but when I looked up the author I discovered she was an expert in international relation and was suitably impressed.
But this book is so much more than a story of what it takes to report from places of human catastrophe. It also a love story and a story of friendship and all that is good about the human condition.
I laughed out loud, I was angered beyond words and my heart was filled with the beauty of love and compassion and the best that we humans have to offer.
After finishing the book I had a look at the reviews and saw that it's been extensively reviewed in all the best places and all reviews are excellent. I can't understand why it hasn't got more publicity.
I don't think I will ever forget this book and the characters that came alive on its pages. I never wanted to leave them and so toward the end I tried to slow the reading down. Problem was I found I couldn't put the book down.
This is one everyone should read and it is a story that will, as the blurb says, 'stay with your forever.' I have give it fives stars. ( )

This book is the story of Kate Price a war correspondant and Pete McDermott a photographer, told in the first person by Kate. It charts their journey together through the many theatres of war in the world - Bosnia, Chechnya, Rwanda, and Iraq. Their journey begins in 1991, in Ridayh, when Kate plucks up courage and asks if she can join Pete and his friend John on a journey towards Kuwait to get that elusive story for her boss Larry. Surprisingly enough they say yes (Pete comments later - only because they had checked her out earlier and seen how hard she worked) and this is where Kate has her first horrifying images of the Highway of Death. But this is also importantly a love story for as Kate and Pete meet again in different places over the years and spend precious time together respect turns into love.
I will never watch a war correspondant on television again without thinking of this story - remembering the details of their lives, the dangers faced and yet the pleasures to be found in the smallest moments. Kate felt she could sense danger before it happened yet still inadvertantly put their lives at risk. She started out as naive and idealisitc but came to a point where nothing made sense anymore, nightmares haunted her and she needed time out. She wanted to have hope but the situations seemed hopeless. she needed to take a break but at the same time missesd the excitement.
The book paints many powerful images that will stay with me - their spending a night in a freezing house in Chechnya as the shells rained down; their visit to a hospital in KwaZulu-Natal that treated AIDS patients and the story of their friendship with an Iranian family. This is not a book for the squeamish as there are graphic descriptions of the unspeakable violence they see and experience.
But it is a book I am glad I read. the characters of Kate and Pete were real to me, I had the feeling that I knew what would happen in the end, but the ending did not lose its impact and was very powerful. ( )

This is the story of Kate Price, a journalist, who has reported in the last few decades on both Gulf Wars, Bosnia, and Rwanda. It’s also the story of her relationship with Pete McDermitt. The motivations of these journalists, their coping strategies, and the impact that covering such events has on them made this a fascinating read for me, although the litany of global tragedies covered also makes it a disconcerting and depressing read. In particular, the section on Rwanda and Kate’s desperation to get out a story that makes a difference, in the face of the world’s apathy, made a strong impression on me. I saw resonances with the themes of The Postmistress in this aspect of the novel. I think the story of the relationship was also all the more poignant for me, because of this context in which it was told … A good read. ( )