An inspiring true story of love, hope, and victory—and of one woman who was determined to make a difference in the wake of a crime.

On August 6, 1993, twenty-year-old Natasha Alexenko was assaulted at gunpoint. After nearly a decade, her backlogged rape kit was finally tested and her rapist, who roamed free for ten years, was brought to justice. On the day he was sentenced, Alexenko vowed that she would no longer be a statistic and would do whatever she could to help police on behalf of other rape victims. In 2011, she founded Natasha’s Justice Project (NJP), a nonprofit committed to ending the rape-kit backlog.

This unflinching memoir chronicles her journey from trauma to triumph. Despite personal setbacks and bureaucratic obstacles, Alexenko refuses to give up on her determination to raise awareness of a problem even worse than she imagined, as tens of thousands of untested rape kits languish in crime storage facilities across the country. Written for fellow survivors, their families, law enforcement, and anyone impacted by rape, her deeply personal story is a testament to the power of one person to make a profound change.

Born on Long Island, New York, and raised in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, Natasha Simone Alexenko is the founder and CEO of Natasha’s Justice Project (NJP), a national nonprofit organization created to expose and eliminate the nationwide rape-kit backlog and to bring justice to survivors of sexual assault. Alexenko has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other national and international publications. She has made guest appearances on broadcast and cable networks and was the focus of the HBO documentary Sex Crimes Unit. Alexenko shared her story at the historic 2015 joint press conference at which Vice President Joe Biden and New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. pledged a combined $80 million to help defray the cost and reduce the backlog of untested rape kits. Alexenko serves as a consultant to Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative Grants (SAKI). For more information, visit www.NatashasJusticeProject.org.

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