The Dressmaker of Khair Khana (2011) and Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield (2015)—in 2016, when a source tipped her off that an all-female militia was advancing the cause of women’s rights in Syria as they battled the Islamic State. Serving with the YPJ, the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units, the women were effective fighters and tacticians, widely respected by the men who served with them; yet, their story was largely unknown beyond the frontlines of the Syrian war. Lemmon is as fearless as her subjects, and her account of researching this story over three years in northern Iraq and northeastern Syria is an education in conflict reporting; her own story, connected to that of these women, makes for an incredibly compelling read.