Valkyries — Jeri Massi

Originally published by Moody Press in two volumes, this edition presents the entire novel in one volume. An epic story of one girl's rise to basketball stardom, VALKYRIES presents the hard truths that most YA Christian fiction ignores: the pain of abuse, the kindness of people who do not profess Christ, the struggle of believers against themselves. Thirteen year old Tracey Jacamuzzi wanders into a Baptist tent meeting on a summer day in 1973. In short order she makes a profession of faith. But her two-fisted, hard drinking father, first beats her, and then exiles her to the prison of the Villa of Mary and Joseph. Her indifferent mother offers no support, and Tracey finds herself alone in a hostile world that she doesn't understand. Facing isolation and hazing, Tracey is unexpectedly saved when the school's star basketball player takes her under her wing, and a volunteer assistant at the school begins to teach her about the presence of Christ with her.