Amy's Book Nook

I Lost My Love in Baghdad by Michael Hastings

The tragic true story story of love and loss upon the backdrop of war is told in Michael Hastings' memoir of his fiancee, Andi Parhamovich, in "I Lost My Love in Baghdad."

Michael Hastings, a young reporter for Newsweek, meets and falls in love with Andi Parhamovich, a publicist for Air America in New York. Michael is sent to Baghdad to cover the war, and over the next year, their relationship changes and grows.

When Andi decides to come to Baghdad to be with Michael by taking a job with the National Democratic Institute, the two's romance becomes stressed with worry about each other's lives and how to find time to be together amid the gunfire of war. Though they make plans for their future together and prospective marriage, Andi takes a mission to meet at the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters, and her convoy is targeted and ambushed by insurgents.

A grim and gritty story of a real relationship and its tragic end, Hastings' story about covering the war and his loss will bring the realities of war home for many readers, no matter what their feelings about the current Iraq war.

A portion of the author's proceeds will go to the Andi Foundation, set up in memory of Andi Parhamovich.

"I Lost My Love in Baghdad" is published by Scribner. It is $24 and 257 pages long.