Why a Booktrail?
1997: Inspired by a true story, the novel explores the aftermath of a college student’s death
Nothing Can Hurt You
What you need to know before your trail
On a cold day in 1997, student Sara Morgan was killed in the woods surrounding her liberal arts college in upstate New York. Her boyfriend, Blake Campbell, confessed, only to be acquitted following a plea of temporary insanity.
In the wake of this senseless act of violence, the case comes to haunt a strange and surprising network of community members, from the young woman who discovers Sara’s body to the junior reporter who senses its connection to convicted local serial killer John Logan. As the years pass, others search for retribution or explanation: including Sara’s half-sister who, stifled by her family’s bereft silence about Blake, poses as a babysitter and seeks out her own form of justice, while the teenager Sara used to babysit starts writing to Logan in prison.
Travel Guide
Based on a true story of a college murder in New York
While attending Bard College in New York, the author Goldberg lived in a house rumored to be a so-called “murder house,” where a student had allegedly killed his girlfriend.This led her to research and look into the case more closely and she found out that there had been a killing of this nature but not in the house but nearby. she also found out that a serial killer had been arrested in the area at around the same time, although not for the student murder.
For an author, this started off a spark of an idea for the novel where she examines the surrounding themes of murder in a school/college setting. What happens to the other students, parents, teachers and the community itself?
Murder in a small town, in a small community is something which chills to the bone.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: Nothing Can Hurt You
Destination/location: New York state, Rhinebeck Author/guide: Nicola Maye Goldberg Departure Time: 1997
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