Bright Young Women

Jessica Knoll

28 September 2023
9781509839995
384 pages

Synopsis

'A compelling, almost hypnotic read' - Lisa Jewell, bestselling author of None of This is True

Bright Young Women is a compulsive, extraordinary novel inspired by the real-life sorority targeted by America's first celebrity serial killer in his final murderous spree. From Jessica Knoll, author of the New York Times bestseller and #1 Netflix movie Luckiest Girl Alive.

January 1978. Tallahassee. When sorority president Pamela Schumacher is startled awake at 3 a.m. by a strange sound, she’s shocked to encounter a scene of implausible violence – two of her friends dead and two others, maimed. Thrust into a terrifying mystery, Pamela becomes entangled in a crime that captivates public interest for more than four decades . . .

On the other side of the country, Tina Cannon has found peace in Seattle after years of hardship. When Ruth, her best friend, goes missing from Lake Sammamish State Park in broad daylight, surrounded by thousands of beachgoers on a beautiful summer day, Tina devotes herself to finding out what happened to her.

When Tina hears about the tragedy in Tallahassee, she suspects the same man the papers refer to is responsible. Determined to make him answer for what he did to Ruth, she travels to Florida on a collision course with Pamela – and one last impending tragedy.

Praise for Bright Young Women:

'Jessica Knoll at her best: an unflinching and evocative novel' - Laura Dave, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me

'Cleverly constructed [. . .] psychologically astute and written with flair' - The Sunday Times

'This book is extraordinary' - Catherine Ryan-Howard, author of Run Time

'Writing with pulse-pounding tension and urgency, Knoll expertly conjures an atmosphere of dread and anxiety . . . An utterly absorbing, disturbing, and absolutely essential read' - Booklist, Starred Review

Jessica Knoll is a careful writer, and this, her third novel, is a perfect match for her cold dissection of social mores and her fierce rage at misogyny. Knoll takes on the story of Ted Bundy, told from the perspective of a student who survives a horrific attack on a sorority house . . . Some may claim that the crime genre is rift with misogyny; those people have not read Jessica Knoll. She tears apart the restrictive world of women’s roles and lays bare the purpose of such hobbles: to keep women from making a scene, to keep them from seeking justice, and most of all, to keep them from seeking their own lives.
Disturbing but thought-provoking in its exploration of society’s obsession with serial killers, it puts a contemporary spin on the page-turning genre.
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.

Books by Jessica Knoll