It is 1937 in Mimosa, Mississippi, and fourteen-year-old Max Brinkmann is an active adolescent in the lively railroad town: he has a newspaper route, builds tree houses with his brothers, and prides himself in making and flying kites. He dreams of running track and playing baseball at Mimosa High School. But when Max's father, Josef (a devout Roman Catholic), announces that the small Catholic school in Mimosa is closing, Max's world is turned upside down. Not only is Josef moving the family to a farm in the middle of nowhere (to remove Max and his six younger siblings from the temptations of the city), the only option for a Catholic education is enrollment at nearby St. Agnes Academy, an all-girls school. Max is overwhelmed by classes of young women and more nuns than he has ever seen, not to mention a new home without electricity or indoor plumbing. Even worse, his hard-hearted, Rosary-a-day father seems intent on making his oldest son as miserable as possible. Friends? Forget them. Hobbies and dreams? Not hardly. Even one speck of something close to fun? Sorry, Max, go chop the wood. Forsaking Mimosa is a timeless story of a disillusioned boy who grows into manhood in a most unlikely environment. Along the way he comes to know the redeeming power of home as he faces tragedy, falls in love, and prepares to become a World War II soldier. These circumstances and others lead him to important discoveries about himself, his faith and, ultimately, his enigmatic father. Valerie Winn's Forsaking Mimosa is a funny, touching, coming-of-age tale. All good stories begin with conflict, and what better setting than a teenage boy who is sent to an all-girls Catholic school? Ms. Winn has a keen ear for dialogue and a knack for bringing scenes to life. ----Neil White, author of In The Sanctuary of Outcasts With carefully crafted language, Valerie Winn draws us into the world of Depression-era rural Mississippi, and helps us understand the soul of the South. ----Daisy Karam-Read, author of From Manhattan to Mississippi and The Love Affair Continues Valerie Winn took stories she heard from her father and let her imagination weave history and fiction together into a fascinating debut novel. ----Susan O'Bryan, The Clarion Ledger (Jackson, MS) Valerie Winn, a native of McComb, Mississippi, is the recipient of a 2008 Literary Arts Fellowship from the Mississippi Arts Commission. A former teacher of art and journalism, she has written for several state newspapers and was a finalist in the Pirates Alley Faulkner Society Creative Writing Competition and the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. She and her husband live in Gautier on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This is her first novel.