Bright Young Women - by Jessica Knoll

Book Synopsis

From the megabestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive comes another shocking thriller inspired by the real-life sorority and target of America's first celebrity serial killer.

January 15, 1978, is a night of promise, excitement, and desire. A serial killer's murderous spree in the Pacific Northwest couldn't be further from the minds of the vibrant young women at the top sorority on Florida State University's campus in Tallahassee.

That night, Pamela Schumacher, president of the sorority, makes the unpopular decision to stay home. Startled awake at 3 a.m. by a strange sound, she makes the fateful decision to investigate. What she finds outside her bedroom door is a scene of implausible violence--two of her sisters dead; two others, maimed.

On the other side of the country, in Seattle, Tina Cannon has found peace after years of hardship. A chance encounter brings twenty-five-year-old Ruth Wachowsky into her life and they forge an instant connection. But then Ruth goes missing from Lake Sammamish State Park in broad daylight, the same day as another young woman, surrounded by thousands of beachgoers. Both vanish without a trace. Tina is convinced Ruth was a target of the man the papers refer to as the All-American Sex Killer.

When she learns of the massacre in Tallahassee, Tina is convinced it's him again. She rushes to Florida, on a collision course with Pamela--and one last impending tragedy.

Bright Young Women tells the story of two women from opposite sides of the country who forge a sisterhood in grief and in the fervent pursuit of justice. Toggling between those terrifying days in 1978 and a letter that brings them together in the present, this is a novel that flips the script on the oft-perpetuated glorification of a sadistic but ultimately average man and instead turns the spotlight on the exceptional women he targeted.

Review Quotes

"Blistering and powerful, Bright Young Women is an almost unbearably vivid story of sisterhood and survival. With razor-sharp skill, Jessica Knoll deconstructs the myth of a criminal mastermind, revealing the women he seeks to destroy as the truly brilliant ones."
--Flynn Berry, New York Times bestselling author of Northern Spy and Under the Harrow

"Bright Young Women is a fearless and intoxicating ride into the aftershocks of a series of brutal murders. Knoll explores in vivid, pointillist prose the effects on the 'bright young women' of the title, both the victims snuffed out in their glorious prime, and those left behind in their wake. It's a compelling, almost hypnotic read and I loved it with a passion."
--Lisa Jewell, New York Times bestselling Author of Then She Was Gone

"Bright Young Women is Jessica Knoll at her best--an unflinching and evocative novel about the tabloid fascination with evil and the dynamic and brilliant women who have the real stories to tell."
-Laura Dave, New York Times Bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me

Praise for Luckiest Girl Alive!

"[A] huge summer read . . . one of those great stories that you can't put down!"--Reese Witherspoon, InStyle

"The perfect page-turner to start your summer."--People (Book of the Week)

"Dark, twisty . . . razor-sharp writing . . . propulsive prose . . . [The] reveal is a real doozy--a legitimately shocking, completely unputdownable sequence that unfolds like a slow-motion horror film. It instantly elevates Luckiest Girl . . . and that momentum keeps going until its final pages."--Entertainment Weekly

"Loved Gone Girl? We promise [Luckiest Girl Alive is] just as addictive."--Good Housekeeping

"A pulse-pounding, jaw-dropping novel about how tragedy twists and shapes lives."--InTouch (A-)

"When Ani FaNelli wants something, she gets it: the job, the body, the man. What starts as a Mean Girls-seeming story line transforms into something so dark, so plot-twistingly intense that...well, actually, no spoilers here." --Marie Claire

"A knockout debut novel . . . completely enthralling . . . devilishly dark and fun."--Publishers Weekly

"[Ani FaNelli is] a cross between Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw and Gone Girl's Amy Dunne. . . . Knoll's debut truly delivers and will keep readers engaged until the end."--Library Journal

About the Author

Jessica Knoll is the New York Times bestselling author of The Favorite Sister and Luckiest Girl Alive--now a major motion picture from Netflix starring Mila Kunis. She has been a senior editor at Cosmopolitan and the articles editor at Self. She grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and graduated from the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their bulldog, Beatrice.