Tightening Dark: An American Hostage in Yemen

This riveting memoir follows a Lebanese-Muslim-American and thirty-year US Marine veteran who suffered a six-month ordeal at the hands of a brutal regime in Yemen--and remained loyal to his country through it all.

As air strikes carpeted Yemen's capital, Sam Farran was one of only a few Americans in the war-ravaged country. He was there to conduct security assessments for a variety of international firms. Days after his arrival, he was brutally seized and taken hostage by Houthi rebels. Sam would spend the next six months suffering a horrific ordeal that would test his endurance, his loyalty and his very soul.

Every day his captors asked him--as a fellow Muslim--to betray America and his Marine heritage in exchange for his freedom. Would he give in to the Houthis and return to his Middle Eastern roots? In the end--and despite daily threats to his life--Sam found the strength to resist, and came out of his ordeal with an increased sense of being, foremost, a US Marine.

The Tightening Dark is an intimate, riveting and inspiring memoir of heroic strength, courage, survival and commitment to country. And a reminder that the best parts of the American dream are the dreamers--those who pledge to being American, regardless of where they are born.