I found this story intriguing. I have just finished a book myself - a memoir of a journey I made in Yemen in 1977 - and am looking for an agent. Because Yemen at that time had been barely exposed to the West, I caught a glimpse of the experiences of women adventurers in the Middle East like Gertrude Bell and Freya Stark. Like them, I discovered something strangely liberating about traveling through a different kind of patriarchy from that I left at home. I agree that the question of risk exemplified in travel is central: without risk women make no progress, yet too much risk or bad luck can cripple individual women and result in the loss of their potential.