Believed

By: Michael James Emberger

Narrated by: Kristina Rothe

Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

Kelsea Jones is like a lot of girls at the University of Northern Minnesota. She has a boyfriend, she works at a coffee shop, and she’s on the swim team. But she’s not a girl. She’s a mermaid.

Trouble brews when star hockey player Chad Andersen takes an interest in her. She tries to avoid him, but he won’t leave her alone. A son of wealth and privilege, he takes what he wants, and he gets away with it. He wants Kelsea, she says no, and so he rapes her. Kelsea stands on a tail and two fins to fight the most painful trial of her life. Despite her trauma and a crisis of faith, she speaks the truth of what Chad did, but will she be believed?

A note from the author:

One out of four college girls experiences rape or sexual assault. That breaks my heart. It’s a crime that has affected people I love, and it has to stop. This novel is my way of raising awareness and showing survivors that someone hears them.

Believed is a product of my friendship with a survivor who is an author and advocate. She opened my eyes to a world of trauma and PTSD that had been largely invisible to me before I met her, and it was life-changing. I needed to share that with others. The burden on my heart was too great to not say something, and fiction is the method I know best to convey the thoughts, truths, pains, and struggles that I see.

Sexual assault is not my story. I haven’t experienced it, I don’t live with the resulting trauma, and I do not wish to profit from the pain of survivors. This is a book for them. It’s a book for those who love them. It’s a book to encourage listeners to think and to empathize and to consider the realities of so many whose lives have been affected by this crime.

©2021 Michael James Emberger (P)2022 Michael James Emberger

Poignant story of strength, character, and justice

Life is good for Kelsea Jones being raised by her adoptive parents, attending college at the University of Northern Minnesota, and about to be engaged to a wonderful man she has known most of her life. As a mermaid, Kelsea has dealt with fear, hatred, persecution, and being ostracized by those who fear her difference. Now the most popular and wealthy Ice Hockey player has set his site on Kelsea assaulting her sexually after being rebuffed several times. Kelsea’s truth does not match up with the popular story going around, now she has to decide whether to be fearless or sulk away and hide from the trauma and truth.

The author, Michael James Emberger, weaves a story around a brutal and savage crime that many females and males suffer silently because when they voice their truth, all too often they are targeted and ridiculed or told to keep quiet. The entire story about Kelsea resonated loudly as her experiences are brought to life and shared. The dialogue, emotions, and actions of each character were vividly described and accurate. At the end when Emberger delivers his closing words I had to stop and look at the name of the author – I was blown away that a man could capture and communicate the effects of such a trauma. I truly believed only a woman could understand and accurately communicate the depth of pain, loss, and abandonment.

The narrator, Kristina Rothe is amazing. Her ability to provide voices to each of these characters with the proper amount of emotion is amazing. Rothe truly places herself within each of the characters almost as if a part of her becomes them. I find her truly a wonderful audiobook performer/narrator with skills that keep the listener mesmerized until the end.

This is a book that will resonate with the listener long after the story has ended. It is haunting in subject matter and performance. You will feel the pain Kelsea experiences and her fears as she comes to term with her trauma and shares her narrative.

Not only does this book have an important message that will impact each and every listener, it is a book that stands out and deserves a much higher rating than the standard five-star rating due to the writing skill of the author but also the narrator.

There were no issues with the production or quality of this audiobook.