First published 2020
Vanessa Wye is fifteen, bright, and eager to grow up when she catches the attention of Jacob Strane, her charismatic English teacher. At forty-two, Strane sees something special in his precocious student, and soon their connection crosses every line it shouldn't. Vanessa believes she has found her first great love, a transformative relationship that will define her for years to come. Seventeen years later, another former student accuses Strane of abuse. She contacts Vanessa, expecting solidarity, but Vanessa faces an impossible decision. She has always viewed her relationship with Strane as consensual, a love affair that shaped who she became. Now she must choose between staying silent or reconsidering everything she thought she knew about her past. The novel moves between Vanessa at fifteen, discovering her own power and sexuality, and Vanessa as an adult, forced to confront whether the man she loved might be someone entirely different than she believed.
Genres: fiction, abuse, contemporary, adult-fiction
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
373 pages · Hardcover · William Morrow
Content warnings: abuse, sexual-assault