From the author of the New York Times bestseller and #1 Netflix
movie Luckiest Girl Alive comes an extraordinary novel inspired by the
real-life sorority targeted by America's first celebrity serial killer
in his final murderous spree.
January 1978. A serial killer has terrorized women across the Pacific
Northwest, but his existence couldn't be further from the minds of the
vibrant young women at the top sorority on Florida State University's
campus in Tallahassee. Tonight is a night of promise, excitement, and
desire, but Pamela Schumacher, president of the sorority, makes the
unpopular decision to stay home--a decision that unwittingly saves her
life. Startled awake at 3 a.m. by a strange sound, she makes the fateful
decision to investigate. What she finds behind the door is a scene of
implausible violence--two of her sisters dead; two others, maimed. Over
the next few days, Pamela is thrust into a terrifying mystery inspired
by the crime that's captivated 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. A chance encounter brings twenty-five-year-old
Ruth Wachowsky into her life, a young woman with painful secrets of her
own, and the two form an instant connection. When Ruth 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 she hears about the tragedy in
Tallahassee, she knows it's the man the papers refer to as the
All-American Sex Killer. 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.
Bright Young Women is the story about two women from opposite sides of
the country who become sisters in their fervent pursuit of the truth. It
proposes a new narrative inspired by evidence that's been glossed over
for decades in favor of more salable headlines--that the so-called
brilliant and charismatic serial killer from Seattle was far more
average than the countless books, movies, and primetime specials have
led us to believe, and that it was the women whose lives he cut short
who were the exceptional ones.
