"David Massey's TORN compelled me to relive my Afghan war experience as if I were there again amid the heat and dust and fear. It's a story of love forged, lost, and regained amid the life-or-death intensity of war, but, much more than a war story, TORN shows readers the ghost of hope and desperate longing for peace that keeps pulling us back to Afghanistan. A powerful and important novel." — Trent Reedy, author of WORDS IN THE DUST
"Vivid and terrifying action sequences light up this intense page-turner featuring a young British medic, Elinor, assigned to a forward operating base in Afghanistan. As if her oddly hostile tent mate, a weak commanding officer, ambush on patrol, and an RPG attack on the compound aren’t challenges enough, the arrival of an American SEAL team, led by a disturbingly attractive lieutenant, sends Elinor’s support unit deep into Taliban territory. The mission: to find both a secret arms cache and also a missing journalist and her teenage daughter, Aroush. But Elinor has already seen Aroush, walking unharmed through vicious firefights just before someone dies. Then she disappears—one of several mysteries that ultimately unfold into a tragic, ugly tale involving child warriors, an entire village massacred by drones, and corruption in high places.
Displaying the bravado to bill herself the “love child of House and Lara Croft,” but more than just a standard-issue action hero, Elinor makes a winningly courageous, tough-minded protagonist-narrator who is nonetheless deeply affected by what she sees and experiences. Readers will be, too. (An afterword about “children of war” not seen.)" — John Peters, Booklist starred review
