LATEST DISCOUNTS & SALES: PROMOTIONS
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Diana Reid's debut novel centres on the friendship between two first-year university students, Eve and Michaela, as they navigate life on campus at a prestigious Sydney university. Reid explores themes of privilege, wealth, entitlement, class and toxic masculinity. She also expertly tackles topics like feminism, consent and unequal power dynamics in relationships in a very thought-provoking way. I found the characters strikingly real and intriguing, and also loved reading about local Sydney places. A wonderful, powerful book! Hannah Ebbings
The Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist 2022 Winner MUD Literary Prize
Shortlisted ABA Booksellers Choice Award for Fiction
Shortlisted Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction
Longlisted ABIA Award for Literary Fiction
Longlisted ABIA Matt Richell Award New Writer of the Year
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 in 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 to 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.
'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've read this year ... it's clever, pacy and wonderfully thoughtful. Read it!' - Zara McDonald, Shameless Podcast
'A surprisingly gripping and very clever look at friendship, power and consent at a university.' - Jason Steger, Literary Editor, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald
'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's 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
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Diana Reid's debut novel centres on the friendship between two first-year university students, Eve and Michaela, as they navigate life on campus at a prestigious Sydney university. Reid explores themes of privilege, wealth, entitlement, class and toxic masculinity. She also expertly tackles topics like feminism, consent and unequal power dynamics in relationships in a very thought-provoking way. I found the characters strikingly real and intriguing, and also loved reading about local Sydney places. A wonderful, powerful book! Hannah Ebbings
'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 *
