Maidenhead

Winner of the The Believer Book Award (2012)

Shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award (2013)

On a mangy beach in Key West, sixteen-year-old Myra meets Elijah, a Tanzanian musician twice her age. Trapped on a Spring Break family vacation, Myra longs to lose her virginity to Elijah, and is shocked to learn he lives with Gayl, a secretive, violent woman with a strange power over him.

When Myra and her sp...