Ethos magazine is a publication that “promotes the character, culture and actions that define the Naval Special Warfare way of life, and examine the issues that shape the community.” Ethos was kind enough to review Found Art in their most recent issue. I’m hopeful that the book will continue to gain exposure in the NSW community.

Here’s the review . . .

Leeana Tankersley’s Found Art is a brave look at the battle within

When life seems overwhelming, where do you look for support? How can you keep yourself grounded, when you feel like your life is being uprooted? Can the things in your life that seem terrible in the moment, when all put together, be something beautiful?

In Found Art, Leeana Tankersley allows readers to follow her on her journey, from her marriage to a Navy SEAL, to the year she spent living with him in the Persian Gulf, and how she returned home – changed.

Readers are thrust into Tankersley’s life in the midst of change — a move to Bahrain, a new marriage, new responsibilities in her life. Her story is a spiritual one, and one that even those of little faith can understand. Her struggles along the way are many, from dealing with the stress involved in a new marriage and a first home to assimilating to a completely foreign culture. She must face not only the shock of adapting to the new land, and a husband fighting a war that keeps him away from her, but the emotions – sadness, anger, fear – that are stirred in her.  She let us see how the changes and feelings she was avoiding slowly became something beautiful she embraced, and ultimately, changed her forever.

I found Tankersley’s honesty about her feelings and struggles sometimes unnerving, forcing me to look at the way I handle change and loss in my own life.  Tankersley writes of the loss of one of her husband’s teammates like only someone who has felt it can. Her struggles with her own faith and the meaning of it will strike a chord with anyone who picks up this book.

-Mandy McCammon, Associate Editor, Ethos