Unbound: A True Story of War, Love, and Survival is a narrative nonfiction book by author Dean King.

[3] To research the project, King interviewed the last surviving woman who marched with the First Army, and delved into historical accounts previously untranslated into English.

[4][5][6] As with his previous book, the nonfiction national bestseller Skeletons on the Zahara, he also traversed one of the most dangerous portions of the journey on foot, trekking in the Snowy Mountains and on the high-altitude bogs of western Sichuan Province (the deadliest part of the Long March).

[2] Often under fire by Nationalist soldiers and fighter bombers, and harassed by local tribal warlords, the First Army travelled some 4,000 miles in 370 days,[2] a distance similar to walking from San Francisco to New York City and back again.

[4] They crossed through the Great Snowy Mountains on the border of Tibet, a dangerous portion of the march that reached 14,700 feet in Dagushan.

Communist ideology was against the crippling practice of foot binding, and arranged marriages (which often became little more than forced servitude and destitution), and encouraged the education of women and introducing them into leadership roles in the workforce.

However, as there was no way to care for infants, particularly with the harsh terrain, half a dozen children born along the route were left with peasant families or to be discovered in abandoned villages.

Other women told stories of suffering amenorrhea, and some believe the trek across the Snowy Mountains triggered early menopause, rendering them infertile.

[2] The research took King four-and-a-half years and two trips to China, in which he interviewed the last living woman survivor of the March (who has since died).

[9] King spent July 2009 in China's Sichuan province, trekking eight days through treacherous highland bogs and hiking up the Dagushan Mountain on the Tibetan border.

"[10] Helen Praeger Young, author of the 2001 book Choosing Revolution: Chinese Women Soldiers on the Long March, stated "Unbound will appeal to every reader who likes history that is exciting, accessible and full of the stories of people who perform extraordinary acts of heroism and endurance.

"[17] Ed Jocelyn, author of the 2006 book The Long March, stated "King gets to the heart of one of history's greatest adventures.