Main description:
In a riveting debut novel that reads like Prep meets Gone Girl, a young woman is determined to create the perfect life—husband, home, and career—until a violent incident from her past threatens to unravel everything and expose her most shocking secret of all.
Twenty-eight-year-old New Yorker Ani FaNelli seems to have it all: she’s a rising star at The Women’s Magazine, impossibly fit, perfectly groomed, and about to marry Luke Harrison, a handsome blueblood. But behind that veneer of perfection lies a vulnerability that Ani holds close and buries deep—a very violent and public trauma from her past that has left her constantly trying to reinvent herself. And only she knows how far she would go to keep her secrets safe.
When a documentary producer invites Ani to tell her side of the chilling incident that took place when she was a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, she hopes it will be an opportunity for public vindication. Armed with the trappings of success—expensive clothes, high-powered byline, a massive engagement ring—she is determined to silence the whispers of suspicion and blame from her past, and prove once and for all how far she’s come since Bradley. She’ll even let them film her lavish wedding on Nantucket, the final step in her transformation.
But perfection doesn’t come without cost. As the wedding and filming converge, Ani’s meticulously crafted facade begins to buckle and crack—until an explosive revelation offers her a final chance at redemption, even as it rocks her picture-perfect world.
Equal parts glitz and darkness, and with a singular voice and twisting plot, Luckiest Girl Alive reads like Sex & the City—if Carrie Bradshaw had a closet full of skeletons instead of shoes. In Ani FaNelli, Jessica Knoll has created a complex and vulnerable heroine who you’ll be rooting for to the very last page.
Review quote:
“At turns funny, shocking, violent and heart-rending, Luckiest Girl Alive hooks its reader and doesn't let go. Jessica Knoll's twisted, twisting debut beautifully explores reinvention, retribution and redemption—and all the rawness in between.”
Review quote:
“The most compelling debut novel I've read in years! Luckiest Girl Alive is intriguing, surprising, and even shockingly funny at times. And Ani FaNelli is a complex, heartbreaking, and unforgettable heroine.”
Review quote:
“With the cunning and verve of Gillian Flynn but with a febrile intensity all its own, Jessica Knoll’s Luckiest Girl Alive is a debut you won’t want to miss. Sly, darkly funny and chilling-to-the bone, it gets under your skin and stays there.”
