The Adventures of Vaclav the Magnificent and his lovely assistant Lena

Tanner has fun re-creating the shimmering world of child co-conspiracy...The story is winningly conveyed...and Tanner doesn't dodge the more unpalatable elements.

Guardian

Haley Tanner has painted in this touching, sparsely written and powerful love story set in New York's Russian community, a vivid portrait of childhood and young adulthood that is likely to appeal to teenage readers and adults alike...It's not often a book comes along that can leave you literally nodding in agreement with the clarity of its insights - but this one has to be a contender.

Daily Mail

What is most intriguing about Tanner's debut, it its surprising darkness, the secrets that lie beneath the cheerful boy-meets-girl of its surface narrative...there are unexpected moments that linger in the memory long beyond the final page of this smart, proficient debut.

Literary Review

Set in New York's Russian émigré community, this is a quirky tale about two children from different worlds who are destined to be together. Amid dark revelations, the relationship between these vividly painted characters will stay with you.

Easy Living

Haley Tanner has created a world peopled with characters of great poignacy and they will linger in the mind - and heart - long after the book is put down.

Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Olive Kitteridge

Vaclav and Lena is a wonderful achievement, generous, playful, moving, and refreshing... Give this novel a few short pages, and I guarantee you'll want to read it to the end.

Kevin Brockmeier, author of The View from the Seventh Layer and The Brief History of the Dead

There are books you enjoy, and then there are books you live in. Haley Tanner plunges you into the Russian émigré community in Brooklyn, where two souls connect under a maternal watchful eye. Tanner's assured narrative voice finds new ways to describe emotion and character, bringing the reader up short again and again with small shocks of awareness. This book is sad, funny, true, and shot through with grace.

Judy Blundell, National Book Award winning author of What I Saw and How I Lied

[A] wonderful and wrenching debut novel ...She offers a case of love so mighty that you believe that it will end up rescuing a traumatized young woman.

New York Times

Tanner infuses their relationship with sunlight but never sentimentalises the immigrant experience... A uniquely charming first novel.

Kate Saunders, The Times

Like all the best tricks, Hayley Tanner's novel leaves you wondering how it's done. [A] Brighton Beach Romeo and Juliet... Funny, warm and smart - and with a peppery twist that suggests truth and love don't always sit easily - this is a magical summer read.

Financial Times