iUniverse author Chantelle Taylor makes history

             iUniverse Rising Star author, Chantelle Taylor in her UK army battledress

iUniverse is proud to feature Battleworn an autobiography by Chantelle Taylor, who has the distinction of  making history by becoming the first female soldier to kill a Taliban fighter in close-quarter combat while on patrol in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

In Battleworn, she tells her story of B Company who fought relentlessly to hold Nad-e Ali, a dusty, sweltering hellhole surrounded by the Taliban during  routine patrol that escalated into a seven week siege,  Taylor faced the possibility of death daily.  The book recounts gun battles and perilous patrols, culminating in the extraction of more than sixty-six casualties with four killed in action.

“Every inch a woman and every inch a warrior. In peace and war Taylor is as radiant as gold and as tough as diamond”

Sam Kiley – author of Desperate Glory & Foreign Affairs Editor of Sky News.

A powerful story that merits telling; it is written with a humility that captures the sometimes impalpable humor of soldiers at war.

iUniverse Battleworn, a winner with readers

Not only is Battleworn a story that merits telling, it is also a tale that readers want to read as Amazon Books reports. Ranking in the top 3000 paid Kindle books of the Amazon Bestsellers table, Battleworn also ranks very high in its categories:

• #29 in Biography & True Accounts > Professionals & Academics
• #30 in Biography & True Accounts > Leaders & Notable People
• #40 in History > Military

More about iUniverse Battleworn author, Chantelle Taylor

Chantelle Taylor joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1998, at age 22. Years later, after numerous deployments she was recommended to take the Queens commission from the ranks. After leaving the British Army in 2009, Chantelle became a diplomatic security consultant and spent a further 3 years based in Iraq.

Now working as a senior security adviser and consultant in tactical medicine, the former soldier is writing her second book, a novel this time with the desire of one day writing for a movie.

As the Daily Telegraph reported

“Our vehicles cannot withstand small arms fire for long so we must react. I pop back up and immediately get eyes on a Taliban fighter – just over 50ft away, half right of me in a field to our left.

“Suddenly, overwhelmed by a fear that I was about to be shot in the face, I experience a massive rush of blood to the head.”

Miss Taylor, who was serving with 16 Air Assault Brigade attached to B Company of (5 Scots) The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, said at that moment her training kicked in.

“I take in a mouthful of dust as I remind myself to breathe. Instinctively and purposefully, I engage him, firing seven shots.”

Describing her enemy as having a long face with a “straggly black beard”, she said: “I am struck by the fearlessness. He knows the odds are that he is about to die, but continues to fire elaborate drug-crazed bursts from his AK47.”

When she hit him he fell to the ground.

She added: “The fighter that I engaged has dropped. It would never be right to claim a kill as a medic, but at the end of the day he no longer had the ability to engage us and that’s all that I am concerned about.

“Faced with the choice of him or me, I chose me.”

    Stephen Adams, Daily Telegraph, 05 Dec 2011

iUniverse thanks history making author, Chantelle Taylor

iUnivere would like thank and congratulate Rising Star author, Chantelle Taylor and wishes her every success in the future with both her career and her writing. To that end buy Battleworn now in the iUniverse Bookstore. Finally  iUniverse Blog looks forward to when Chantelle achieves her next goal of penning a book turned movie.