{"product_id":"bright-and-tender-dark-9781639732890","title":"Bright and Tender Dark","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn exquisitely written novel about a murder on a college campus and its aftermath twenty years later. \u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"\u003c\/i\u003eAnyone who's ever been obsessed by a crime story will find a facet of themselves in this wise, compelling, and gripping book.\" \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e- \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eRachel Monroe, author of \u003ci\u003eSavage Appetites\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Days after the dawn of Y2K, beautiful, charismatic nineteen-year-old Karlie Richards is found brutally murdered in her campus apartment. Two decades later, those who knew Karlie-and those who just knew of her-remain consumed by her death. Among them is her freshman-year roommate, Joy, now middle-aged and mid-divorce, living in the same college town and desperate for a new beginning. When she stumbles upon a twenty-year-old letter from Karlie, Joy becomes convinced the man in prison for her murder was wrongfully convicted. Soon she is diving deep into the dark world of internet conspiracy theorists and amateur sleuth blogs and bouncing off others touched by the long, sensational aftermath of this crime. They include KC, the trans night manager at the building where Karlie was killed; Sheri, the mother of the man serving time; and Jacob Hendrix, the charming professor with whom, Joy knows all too well, Karlie was romantically entangled before her death. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Jumping between 2019 and 1999, \u003ci\u003eBright and Tender Dark\u003c\/i\u003e takes us from the era of Reddit threads and online obsession to the evangelism-infused culture of the late '90s to reveal what really happened to Karlie. It is a compulsively readable, prismatic literary debut that brilliantly mines the mythology of murder, the power of urban legend, and the psychological urge to both protect and exploit what you love but cannot have.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJoanna Pearson\u003c\/b\u003e's stories have appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery and Suspense, \u003c\/i\u003eand elsewhere. She won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize and was a finalist for a Shirley Jackson Award, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and a Virginia Literary Award. She lives in North Carolina, where she works as a psychiatrist.\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50573530628370,"sku":"9781639732890","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_d0bcb44a-469f-4324-8468-f29ff9eeb6d3.jpg?v=1773738126","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/bright-and-tender-dark-9781639732890","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}