It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts via Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.
Today I'm featuring Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll. The excerpts shared are from a hardcover version borrowed from the library.
Book Beginning: 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 had long since fallen to a footnote in the story.
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My thoughts: The compelling opening foreshadows the story of innocence shattered and lives irrevocably changed by the actions of a depraved man. Beyond the at times disturbing content, I'm finding it challenging to follow the timeline and relationships between characters which are years apart because of the way the chapters are structured.
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From GoodReads: 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.
