The Virtue Season by L.M. Nathan
This book has been compared to Bridgerton and The Hunger Games, miles apart in genre! Intrigued? Then read on for our guest blog from author, L.M. Nathan.
The Virtue Season has been compared to both Bridgerton and The Hunger Games, which might seem like an odd pairing at first glance, but these two seemingly opposite sides of literature tell the story of me and what I grew up reading. As a young adult, I was obsessed with all things Austen and Brontë – the romance of the balls and the epic love stories, and – most important of all – the young women who would never allow society to dictate who they should be, or what they were allowed to do. For me, those characters rival even Katniss Everdeen, though their weapons are a little more subtle, words not deeds. Later, I discovered darker stories with more obvious feminist ideas like The Handmaid’s Tale. Both, I would argue, deliver powerful characters who challenge the worlds they live in, albeit it in their own ways.
That is precisely what I wanted to do in The Virtue Season, to write a story that had all the romance of a regency novel, but explored how every young woman must push at the limitations of the world around them.
In The Virtue Season, genetic ‘flaws’ are feared by the oppressive council who use the virtue season balls to match young adults whose bloodlines are considered pure. When Manon discovers a potential ‘flaw’ in her bloodline, she is terrified she will be decommissioned, and never allowed to marry. Though there are potential suitors vying for her attention – the charming Tomie and the brooding Wick – can she let herself fall in love when there’s a very real risk it will be taken from her? That is exactly what she has witnessed happening to her friend Agatha whose decommissioning means she will never unite with the boy she has always loved.
The spurious notion of perfection and the pursuit of it affects us all, I think – particularly as young adults when we’re trying to figure out who we are and where we fit. There are so many ways in which society is more accepting now than when I was growing up, but I still see that narrow view of beauty everywhere I look and, often, I think it’s getting narrower. There is still that same narrative of a ‘perfect’ body and ‘perfect’ looks – and now there are more ways to attempt to get it. Make-up routines are becoming more complex; there are tutorials on how to fake lip fillers readily available, and cosmetic procedures are a common aspiration. It all adds up to the same subtext, that you must at least try to pursue perfection – because you are not perfect as you are. It seems that, as the voices of dissent grow louder, so too do the voices of conformity. I wanted to write a book that called to young adults to stand up and shout: you do not define me. I am what I am.
That is Manon’s journey in The Virtue Season. She lives in a world that demonises chronic conditions, mental illness and disability, and she must fight to believe she is not ‘flawed’, that it is the society that makes the rules that is, and that should be brought down. Along the way, she might just find romance too.
