Overview

Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist  Winner of the ABIA Book of the Year Award Winner of the ABIA Award for Literary Fiction of the Year Winner ABA Booksellers Choice Award for Fiction Winner of the MUD Literary Prize Shortlisted for The Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction Shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year for Fiction Shortlisted Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction Shortlisted ABIA Matt Richell Award New Writer of the Year ‘set to be one of the year’s most talked about books’ – Vogue Australia ‘a great read that will become an Australian classic’ – Sydney Morning Herald ‘an absolute cracker, Love & Virtue lobs right into the current moment with a clarifying light. I hope EVERYONE reads this book.’ – Helen Garner, bestselling and award winning author of The First Stone and The Spare Room ‘one of the best novels I have read this year ... it’s clever, pacy and wonderfully thoughtful. Read it!’ – Zara McDonald, Shameless Podcast Sex. Power. Consent. Whenever I say I was at university with Eve, people ask me what she was like, sceptical perhaps that she could have always been as whole and self-assured as she now appears. To which I say something like: ‘People are infinitely complex.’ But I say it in such a way—so pregnant with misanthropy—that it’s obvious I hate her. Michaela and Eve are two bright, bold women who befriend each other their first year at a residential college at university, where they live in adjacent rooms. They could not be more different; one assured and popular – the other uncertain and eager-to-please. But something happens one night in O-week – a drunken encounter, a foggy memory that will force them to confront the realities of consent and wrestle with the dynamics of power. Initially bonded by their wit and sharp eye for the colleges’ mix of material wealth and moral poverty, Michaela and Eve soon discover how fragile friendship is, and how capable of betrayal they both are. Written with a strikingly contemporary voice that is both wickedly clever and incisive, issues of consent, class and institutional privilege, and feminism become provocations for enduring philosophical questions we face today.  Praise for Love & Virtue ‘Diana Reid will be called the new Sally Rooney – you’re certain of it by the end of page one. By the end of this real, raw and startling novel, you know Reid is the talent to whom every smart young novelist who follows her will be compared – or hope to be.’ – Meg Mason, author of Sorrow and Bliss ‘Love & Virtue captures the near-erotic thrill of being a young woman, alone and adrift, who finds, in another young woman, an intellectual equal ... Like Elena and Lila in Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, a touchstone for Reid, their spark feels charged, given to exploding.’ – Sydney Morning Herald ‘Love & Virtue is an accomplished novel – by turns funny and furious, and full of the plangent longing and confusion of early adulthood.’ - The Saturday Paper ‘It is not enough to say Love & Virtue heralds the arrival of a new literary talent: Reid is intensely incisive and brilliant.’ – Sarah Schmidt, author of See What I Have Done ‘Reid’s prose interrogates everything we think we know about love. Heartfelt and unputdownable, this is a remarkably self-assured debut.’ – Victoria Hannan, author of Kokomo ‘A fierce new voice at just the right moment, shining a light on consent and class with clarity and grace.’ – Inga Simpson, author of Where the Trees Were and Understory

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9781761150470

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Reviews

'an absolute cracker, Love & Virtue lobs right into the current moment with a clarifying light. I hope EVERYONE reads this book.' * Helen Garner * 'I have been chewing on this book for days now. Compelling reading. So well written. Complex. I keep turning it over in my mind and I want to talk about it!' * Hannah Kent * 'An extraordinary new voice in Aussie lit.' * Zoe Foster Blake * 'Loved it...It's electrifying' * Annabel Crabb * 'Love and Virtue is an accomplished novel - by turns funny and furious, and full of the plangent longing and confusion of early adulthood.' -- Fiona Wright * The Saturday Paper * 'Love & Virtue is a formidable debut novel. The writing is punchy and clever, with characters so deeply drawn that they feel like friends and enemies from a former life.' -- Zoya Patel * The Guardian Australia * 'I inhaled it...an amazing book' * Mia Freedman * 'Reid writes with ferocity and intelligence, and this novel demands attention and commands respect.' -- Anna Carew-Reid * Sunday Times Magazine * 'Unputdownable, her rich and resplendent detail distils the Australian campus experience with cutting insight, ultimately leading the audience to contemplate its trenchant central question: are you a good person, or do you just look like one?' -- Noah Vaz * Law Society Journal * 'Fans of Sally Rooney will gravitate to this compelling read that centres on feminism, power and sex in the lives of Australian university students.' -- Maggie Zhou * Refinery 29 Australia * 'Reid is a young author to watch.' * Marie Claire * 'Love and Virtue captures the near-erotic thrill of being a young woman, alone and adrift, who finds, in another young woman, an intellectual equal ... Like Elena and Lila in Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, a touchstone for Reid, their spark feels charged, given to exploding.' -- Neha Kale * Sydney Morning Herald * 'wonderfully readable prose, offering a nuanced and often very funny portrait of privilege and betrayal that probes complex questions about consent, trust and what it means to be a truly good person.' -- Gemma Nisbet * The West Australian * 'The prose crackles fiercely, luring readers in with phrases to mull over and taste before devouring the next delicious sentence.' -- Annabel Harz * Artshub *

Author Information

Diana Reid is a Sydney-based writer, who graduated from the University of Sydney last year with a Bachelor of Arts (First Class Hons Philosophy)/Laws. In January 2020, her career in theatre was off to a promising start: the musical she co-wrote and produced, 1984! The Musical!, debuted and she was set to direct and write theatre performances around the country and over to the Edinburgh Fringe. When COVID-19 saw the cancellation of global theatre, she decided she’d spend her time in shutdown writing a manuscript. Love & Virtue, her debut novel, was shortlisted for the Indie Awards and the ABA Booksellers Choice Award, longlisted for two ABIA Awards and was the winner of the 2022 MUD Literary Prize. Diana is also a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist for 2022. Her second novel, Seeing Other People, will publish in October 2022.  

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