The Feasting Virgin - Paperback

by Georgia Kolias (Author)

Thirty-eight-year-old Xeni is secretly praying for a virgin birth--what could possibly go wrong?

Xeni is a first-generation Greek American, raised in the Greek Orthodox faith, and trained in all the essential skills of a traditional Greek housewife. She knows how to make any Greek dish scrumptious, but the one recipe she hasn't mastered is how to make a baby--by virgin birth. Xeni is a lesbian and struggles daily to resolve what she wants with what she doesn't--praying for a miracle.

Meanwhile, free-spirited Callie, who ended up with a baby conceived during a boozy one-night stand, is trying to bridge a cultural divide with Gus, her Greek American baby daddy, by learning to cook just like his mother. When Xeni spots Callie in the produce aisle selecting limp spinach and tofu for spanakopita, she's compelled to offer her assistance. After all, food can create miracles, and they both need one.

With undeniable chemistry from their first cooking lesson, Xeni and Callie sublimate their intense attraction to one another by creating mouthwatering meals. But their good intentions are blown to shreds when Gus's mother arrives from Greece and decides that Xeni, not Callie, would make the perfect Greek wife for Gus. Now Xeni must once and for all reconcile her religious beliefs with her sexuality--and decide which love is ultimately the higher power.

The Feasting Virgin is a delectable novel that is full of heart, humor, magical realism, and a veritable feast full of tasty recipes.

Author Biography

Georgia Kolias is a native San Franciscan and grew up in a traditional working-class Greek immigrant family. She holds an MFA in creative writing and seeks to cultivate the intersections of food, fertility, sexuality, and culture through the written word. She blogs for the Huffington Post and her work has appeared in The Advocate, The Manifest-Station, Role Reboot, When Women Waken, and various anthologies. Georgia works as an acquisition's editor at New Harbinger Publications and lives in Oakland, California with her three children.