"Russell has been working on her debut novel for 18 years, and you can tell how much this time has strengthened the final work. It’s a challenging story she’s chosen to tell – a teenage girl unwittingly entering into an immensely damaging relationship with her teacher, a woman grappling to sustain the love story she’s told herself and made herself believe in order to survive – and I appreciate just how well she has managed to tell it. My Dark Vanessa is a provocative portrait of sexual and psychological harm, how society enables this harm to come to young women, and how damaging our expectations are of how a victim should act. This is a truly extraordinary novel, and one that will generate a lot of conversation in the same vein as Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women.” - Kate

 "This book needs a trigger warning. Trauma is not something that is easily defined, nor is abuse. Set during the aftermath of the Me Too movement, we follow a victim as she slowly comes to terms with the reality of what happened to her. It is quite explicit in its depiction of child sex abuse but the extreme nature of the circumstances drag important questions into the spotlight. One could simply describe it as “Lolita from the perspective of Dolores’’ but it is so much more than that." - Angelita

 "Wow - I am so impressed by this debut novel. It's powerful, breathtaking and stays on your mind. Dealing with the protagonist Vanessa's illicit 'relationship' with her high school teacher, what I loved about this book is how it navigates the 'grey areas' of sexual abuse so deftly and with such nuance, vividly depicting the confusing and overwhelming emotions that follow. It wasn't always an easy read (it definitely needs a trigger warning) but so so worth it for the way Russell explores these themes with empathy, and without telling you what to think. It challenged my assumptions and provided such an original insight into the experience of this kind of trauma. Honestly a strong contender for Book of the Year already. For readers of Three Women." - Lucy H