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Table of Contents
About The Book
Two women from opposite sides of the country are brought together by violent acts of the same man, and become allies and sisters in arms as they pursue the justice that would otherwise elude them in one of the most acclaimed, highly-anticipated thrillers of the year.
Masterfully blending elements of psychological suspense and true crime, Jessica Knoll—author of the bestselling novel Luckiest Girl Alive and the writer behind the Netflix adaption starring Mila Kunis—delivers a new and exhilarating thriller in Bright Young Women. The book opens on a Saturday night in 1978, hours before a soon-to-be-infamous murderer descends upon a Florida sorority house with deadly results. The lives of those who survive, including sorority president and key witness, Pamela Schumacher, are forever changed. Across the country, Tina Cannon is convinced her missing friend was targeted by the man papers refer to as the All-American Sex Killer—and that he’s struck again. Determined to find justice, the two join forces as their search for answers leads to a final, shocking confrontation.
Blisteringly paced, 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); and “a compelling, almost hypnotic read and I loved it with a passion” (Lisa Jewell, New York Times bestselling author of None of This Is True).
Masterfully blending elements of psychological suspense and true crime, Jessica Knoll—author of the bestselling novel Luckiest Girl Alive and the writer behind the Netflix adaption starring Mila Kunis—delivers a new and exhilarating thriller in Bright Young Women. The book opens on a Saturday night in 1978, hours before a soon-to-be-infamous murderer descends upon a Florida sorority house with deadly results. The lives of those who survive, including sorority president and key witness, Pamela Schumacher, are forever changed. Across the country, Tina Cannon is convinced her missing friend was targeted by the man papers refer to as the All-American Sex Killer—and that he’s struck again. Determined to find justice, the two join forces as their search for answers leads to a final, shocking confrontation.
Blisteringly paced, 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); and “a compelling, almost hypnotic read and I loved it with a passion” (Lisa Jewell, New York Times bestselling author of None of This Is True).
Excerpt
1. Pamela PAMELA
Montclair, New Jersey
Day 15,825
You may not remember me, but I have never forgotten you, begins the letter written in the kind of cursive they don’t teach in schools anymore. I read the sentence twice in stinging astonishment. It’s been forty-three years since my brush with the man even the most reputable papers called the All-American Sex Killer, and my name has long since fallen to a footnote in the story.
I’d given the return address only a cursory glance before sliding a nail beneath the envelope’s gummed seam, but now I hold it at arm’s length and say the sender’s name out loud, emphatically, as though I’ve been asked to answer the same question twice by someone who definitely heard me the first time. The letter writer is wrong. I have never forgotten her either, though she is welded to a memory that I’ve often wished I could.
“You say something, hon?” My secretary has moonwalked her rolling chair away from her desk, and now she sits framed by my open office door with a solicitous tilt of her head. Janet calls me hon and sometimes kiddo, though she is only seven years older than I am. If anyone refers to her as my administrative assistant, she will press her lips together whitely. That’s the sort of current-climate pretension Janet doesn’t care for.
Janet watches me flip the navy-bordered note card, back to front, front to back, generating a slight wind that lifts my bangs from my forehead. I must look like I’m fanning myself, about to faint, because she hurries over and I feel her hand grazing my midback. She fumbles with her readers, which hang from her neck on a rhinestone-strung chain, then juts her sharp chin over my shoulder to read the outstanding summons.
“This is dated nearly three months ago,” I say with a ripple of rage. That the women who should be the first to know were always the last was the reason my doctor made me cut out salt for the better part of the eighties. “Why am I just seeing it now?” What if I’m too late?
Janet mean-mugs the date. February 12, 2021. “Maybe security flagged it.” She goes over to my desk and locates the envelope on top of my leather-looking-but-synthetically-priced desk pad. “Uh-huh.” She underlines the return address in the upper-left corner with a square nail. “Because it’s from Tallahassee. They would have flagged that for sure.”
“Shit,” I say insubstantially. I am standing there when, just like that night, my body begins to move without any conscious consent from my mind. I find that I am packing up for the day, though it’s just after lunch and I have mediation at four. “Shit,” I say again, because this tyrannous part of me has decided that I will not only be canceling my afternoon but I will also incur a no-show fee for tomorrow’s six a.m. spin class.
“What can I do for you?” Janet is regarding me with the combination of concern and resignation that I haven’t seen in a long time—the look people give you when the very worst has happened, and really, there isn’t anything anyone can do for you, for any of us, because some of us die early and inconveniently and there is no way to predict if it will be you next, and before you know it, mourner and comforter are staring dead-eyed into the abyss. The routine comes to me viscerally though it’s been eight presidential administrations. Three impeachments. One pandemic. The towers going down. Facebook. Tickle Me Elmo. Snapple iced tea. They never got to taste Snapple iced tea. But it didn’t happen in some bygone era either. If they had lived, they’d be the same age as Michelle Pfeiffer.
“I think I’m going to Tallahassee,” I say in disbelief.
Montclair, New Jersey
Day 15,825
You may not remember me, but I have never forgotten you, begins the letter written in the kind of cursive they don’t teach in schools anymore. I read the sentence twice in stinging astonishment. It’s been forty-three years since my brush with the man even the most reputable papers called the All-American Sex Killer, and my name has long since fallen to a footnote in the story.
I’d given the return address only a cursory glance before sliding a nail beneath the envelope’s gummed seam, but now I hold it at arm’s length and say the sender’s name out loud, emphatically, as though I’ve been asked to answer the same question twice by someone who definitely heard me the first time. The letter writer is wrong. I have never forgotten her either, though she is welded to a memory that I’ve often wished I could.
“You say something, hon?” My secretary has moonwalked her rolling chair away from her desk, and now she sits framed by my open office door with a solicitous tilt of her head. Janet calls me hon and sometimes kiddo, though she is only seven years older than I am. If anyone refers to her as my administrative assistant, she will press her lips together whitely. That’s the sort of current-climate pretension Janet doesn’t care for.
Janet watches me flip the navy-bordered note card, back to front, front to back, generating a slight wind that lifts my bangs from my forehead. I must look like I’m fanning myself, about to faint, because she hurries over and I feel her hand grazing my midback. She fumbles with her readers, which hang from her neck on a rhinestone-strung chain, then juts her sharp chin over my shoulder to read the outstanding summons.
“This is dated nearly three months ago,” I say with a ripple of rage. That the women who should be the first to know were always the last was the reason my doctor made me cut out salt for the better part of the eighties. “Why am I just seeing it now?” What if I’m too late?
Janet mean-mugs the date. February 12, 2021. “Maybe security flagged it.” She goes over to my desk and locates the envelope on top of my leather-looking-but-synthetically-priced desk pad. “Uh-huh.” She underlines the return address in the upper-left corner with a square nail. “Because it’s from Tallahassee. They would have flagged that for sure.”
“Shit,” I say insubstantially. I am standing there when, just like that night, my body begins to move without any conscious consent from my mind. I find that I am packing up for the day, though it’s just after lunch and I have mediation at four. “Shit,” I say again, because this tyrannous part of me has decided that I will not only be canceling my afternoon but I will also incur a no-show fee for tomorrow’s six a.m. spin class.
“What can I do for you?” Janet is regarding me with the combination of concern and resignation that I haven’t seen in a long time—the look people give you when the very worst has happened, and really, there isn’t anything anyone can do for you, for any of us, because some of us die early and inconveniently and there is no way to predict if it will be you next, and before you know it, mourner and comforter are staring dead-eyed into the abyss. The routine comes to me viscerally though it’s been eight presidential administrations. Three impeachments. One pandemic. The towers going down. Facebook. Tickle Me Elmo. Snapple iced tea. They never got to taste Snapple iced tea. But it didn’t happen in some bygone era either. If they had lived, they’d be the same age as Michelle Pfeiffer.
“I think I’m going to Tallahassee,” I say in disbelief.
About The Author
Sabrina Lantos
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.
Product Details
- Publisher: S&S/Marysue Rucci Books (September 19, 2023)
- Length: 384 pages
- ISBN13: 9781501153228
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Raves and Reviews
"Bright Young Women doesn’t put its focus on the murderer. It’s more interested in his victims—and the survivors who are on a mission to catch him before he kills again.”
--TIME, Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2023
Inspired by the real-life case of the “All-American Sex Killer,” the new novel from Jessica Knoll aims to flip the usual serial killer story upside down. Knoll’s book focuses on the women involved—victims, survivors, and investigators—and turns a bright light on the banality of evil."
--Goodreads, 55 Most Anticipated Books of Fall
"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."
CrimeReads/LitHub, Most Anticipated Books of 2023
"Bright Young Women braids the stories of two survivors, Pamela and Tina, and their fervent bond forged through grief and a pursuit of justice."
—Bustle, The 35 Best New Books of Fall 2023
“Something about fall weather begs for a thriller, and Jessica Knoll delivers with her latest.”
—Country Living
“A stunning, engaging subversion of the Bundy myth—and the true-crime genre.”
—Kirkus (Starred Review)
“Stunning… By focusing on the women affected by her Ted Bundy stand-in instead of the nuances of his criminal psychology, Knoll movingly reframes an American obsession without stripping it of its intrigue. The results are masterful.”
—Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review)
"An utterly absorbing, disturbing, and absolutely essential read.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“An unsettling and thrilling page-turner… Knoll’s haunting, must-read account will captivate [readers] until the end.”
—Library Journal (starred Review)
"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
"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
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
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