Love & Virtue

Love & Virtue is a novel by the Australian author Diana Reid, first published by Ultimo Press on 29 September 2021 and her first book. It is set at a university and follows young Australian students through questions of feminism, power and sex.

Michaela is eighteen when she arrives at Fairfax College, the only all-female residential college on the campus. She grew up interstate and a scholarship has given her the chance of a fresh start in Sydney, where she is immediately struck by the long-standing private school cliques and social circles.

Her new neighbour is Eve, who is twenty, has already taken the opportunity of a gap year and explored the world, and who quickly makes an impression on the college. The novel is narrated by somebody who was at university with Eve, and who answers questions about her in a way that makes her feelings obvious.

The book opens with two drunk students fumbling their way through a dance in a university bar and then stumbling outside, and the account of what follows is the event the rest of the novel circles around.