Sometimes the Girl

Sometimes the Girl

Coming in Spring 2025


Eighteen-year-old Holiday needs to sort her life out. She’s still shaken from her brother’s recent suicide attempt; still pining over her ex, Maya; and still struggling to write again after a long dry spell. To earn enough money for a rebalancing trip with Maya, Holi gets a short-term job: organizing the attic of acclaimed author Elsie McAllister.

It’s an unglamorous gig with a difficult boss. Elsie—whose fame rests on a single novel published decades ago—is in her nineties, in failing health, and fiercely protective of her privacy. But as Holi sorts through the attic’s surprising contents, she realizes there’s much more to Elsie than the novel that made her a legend.

Unearthing Elsie’s secrets will change how Holi sees art, life, and the way they intertwine as she grapples with choices that will define her own path.

“Mason-Black’s prose sparkles with poetic beauty as Holi engages in introspective musings about collective mourning and how individual healing is possible only in community… Beautifully written and powerfully uplifting.”    
Kirkus [starred review]

“With gorgeous prose and a setting so real you can smell the boxes in Elsie’s attic, Jennifer Mason-Black crafts a story that’s part-mystery and part-odyssey. Through her complicated, layered relationship with Elsie, Holi unboxes secrets, deep wounds, and a longing for the kind of healing that comes with human connection.” 
—Carrie Firestone, author of The First Rule of Climate Club and Dress Coded 

“Sometimes the Girl is a book so powerful and tender that you just want to hold it close, knowing it will help you weather your own hard times. With enormous skill, Jennifer Mason-Black crosses the generation gap to plumb the pain—and poetry and transcendence— that unite two women writers of two wildly different eras. This is a metafiction every bit as addictive as the bestselling novel it’s about.”  
Margot Harrison, author of Only She Came Back  

“Mason-Black never shies away from the hard questions and harder answers in this devastating, engrossing puzzle of a story. I can’t stop thinking about it.”  
Mary McCoy, author of I, Claudia and Indestructible Object  

Other titles from Jennifer

Ultrices aliquam

Don’t miss it!

Get a special copy signed by me

Duis quis euismod facilisis nunc arcu, diam non aliquet eget imperdiet maecenas blandit vitae laoreet tincidunt sociis proin massa pulvinar.

18 Apr
2021

Location
1234 N Spring St, Los Angeles, CA 90012, United States.

Don’t miss it!

Subscribe to Jen’s Newsletter

The flotsam and jetsam of unstable seas. Writing, reading, pondering and more, straight from my lifeboat to yours.


powered by TinyLetter