“…at once poignant, at times humorous, and suddenly brutal. Charlebois’ masterfully paints a portrait of two teenage boys dangerously exploring their sexuality in the quaint but fundamentalist farming village of St. Nicholas. … the prose is superb and sensual…” Lonnie Busch, author of Cargo Hold 4, Project Übermensch All proceeds from sales of Virtuous go to Rainbow Railroad, an organisation which extracts Queer people from Chechnya where being out is a death sentence. In the present-day farming village of St Nicholas, the church hovers over everything, especially the lives of two Queer boys who spend two years trying to guess the other’s intentions. When they finally meet, their lives become idyllic, even as they sneak in and out of shadows in the village, their school, and their families. In a community where a cat is named Jesus, a teaching nun considered a saint is actually a sadist, and where God seems to abandon the young, forces come together in a way that will destroy St Nicholas and turn the boys’ lives into a living hell. This is a graphic tale of sex and violence that spares no one. From the award-winning author of The Old Woman and Her Children, The Postulant and The Soldier comes a novella that traces lines between today’s biggest issues and the sinful acts of the past.