the survivors

When Pamela Schumacher was awakened in the night at her Florida State sorority house, she walked through picking up after her sorority sisters as usual, being the president and a mother hen. She saw the television left on and the dirty plates. And then she saw the intruder. A man was leaving by the front door, crouched, holding something. Pamela saw his face before he opened the door and ran out.

She was never the same.

Pamela went upstairs to check on the girls and found two that were badly wounded. The two that were killed she didn’t know about until later. She knew that they had been injured too, but her shock kept her from understanding the full extent of what she was experiencing until hours later, when a nurse and former sorority sister had called to check on her, and the rest of the house. That was after they had been swarmed with police, EMTs, crime scene technicians, and reporters. So many reporters, all standing outside the house.

Pamela took the lead as best she could inside the house. She tried to help find the girls places to stay, to get them packed as they were allowed back into their rooms, to help the police with their investigation. She had seen him, after all. But she was also devastated. One of the young women who had been killed, Denise, had been her best friend.

Meanwhile, another woman, had arrived in Tallahassee with a purpose. Tina was hunting someone, a man, the man that she thinks killed her friend back in Seattle. He had killed others. He was known for his brutality. He had been caught in Colorado and escaped. Twice. And now he had struck in Florida, and she wasn’t going to let him get away with it any more. She found Pamela and showed her the mug shot. Pamela knew at once that it was the man she had seen leaving that night. He was the one who had killed her best friend.

These women could have succumbed to the fear. They could have made quiet homes for themselves and let the police handle it (not that they’d done a great job so far). Instead, they used their trauma to make themselves strong. They fought back. They remembered. They became the part of the story that should be told. They were Bright Young Women, and they deserve to have their stories told.

The new novel from bestselling Jessica Knoll is a study of the women who survived Ted Bundy. The ones who lost friends, family, lovers to the hands of a brutal killer and kept moving forward. Despite the crimes and the criminal, the missteps of police and mistakes of judges and insensitivity of the press, the women take over this story and show just how important it is not just to survive in life but to thrive, to live well, and to keep your power.

This novel is powerful and shattering. Knoll’s way with words brings scenes to life with a desperate accuracy that is heart-breaking and soul-crushing. It is not for the weak, not for the traumatizes, definitely not for everyone. But it is also inspiring and real and brutally honest and a celebration of hope. Bright Young Women is the flip side to the story every hears about serial killer Ted Bundy. It tells the story of the women he left behind, the ones who he didn’t touch but left scarred by loss anyway. It’s the story of how crime affects us all, cuts us, disarms us, wounds us, but doesn’t kill us. And we can use our strength to remember, to change the system, to take away the power from the men who kill and return it to the Bright Young Women who shine so brightly, in life and in death.

This book is for the survivors.

Egalleys for Bright Young Women were provided by Marysue Rucci Books/Simon & Schuster through NetGalley, with many thanks.