"With her debut, Krista Bridge has created a book that will rock you to your knees...Krista Bridge is a master. Her stories are so realistic that it is hard to believe they are fiction. I kept reading The Virgin Spy as if it was a memoir -- it was that compelling, that believable." -- Event

A stunning debut short-story collection from an award-winning writer reminiscent of a young Margaret Atwood.

From a young atheist who hopes to catch the goodness of the Christian boy she dates, to a girl who decides to have her first sexual experience with a much older man whom she finds both erotic and repellent, the protagonists in Krista Bridge's subtle and resonant stories confront the elusiveness of true connection and the inevitability of restlessness and dissatisfaction.

These stories have at their centre the unsettling dynamics of family, the tenderness and cruelty of romance and friendship, and the troubling ties by which we are bound to each other. Like the people who populate them, these stories are by turns moody and introspective, sad and funny, and all are steeped in the longing that defines our search for that archetypal home. Most importantly, they reveal a writer with a beguiling sensibility, uncommon insight and a voice of promise.

Krista Bridge has published fiction in Toronto Life, Descant, prism, International and Prairie Fire. Her short fiction has been nominated for a National Magazine Award, and one of her stories has been selected for the Journey Prize Anthology and 05: Best Canadian Stories. She holds an M.A. from the University of Toronto and currently resides in Toronto.

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