A House in the Sky: A Memoir

"Exquisitely told...A young woman's harrowing coming-of-age story and an extraordinary narrative of forgiveness and spiritual triumph." -The New York Times Book Review

Amanda Lindhout's unforgettable hostage memoir recounts her fifteen-month abduction in Somalia and her extraordinary journey toward hope and redemption in this powerful true story of survival, resilience, and forgiveness.

As a child, Amanda Lindhout escaped a violent household by paging through issues of National Geographic and imagining herself visiting its exotic locales. At the age of nineteen, working as a cocktail waitress, she began saving her tips so she could travel the globe. Aspiring to understand the world and live a significant life, she backpacked through Latin America, Laos, Bangladesh, and India, and emboldened by each adventure, went on to Sudan, Syria, and Pakistan. In war-ridden Afghanistan and Iraq she carved out a fledgling career as a television reporter. And then, in August 2008, she traveled to Somalia-"the most dangerous place on earth." On her fourth day, she was abducted by a group of masked men along a dusty road.

Held hostage for 460 days, Amanda survives on memory-every lush detail of the world she experienced in her life before captivity-and on strategy, fortitude, and hope. When she is most desperate, she visits a house in the sky, high above the woman kept in chains, in the dark.

Vivid and suspenseful, this gripping survival memoir is "a searingly unsentimental account. Ultimately it is compassion-for her naïve younger self, for her kidnappers-that becomes the key to Lindhout's survival" (O, The Oprah Magazine).