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• Sometimes the Girl - 2025 Carolrhoda Lab, Minneapolis, MN
• Devil and the Bluebird - 2016 Amulet Books, New York, NY

• Jennifer Mason-Black website - https://www.jennifermasonblack.com/

  Jennifer is a lifelong fan of most anything with words. She’s checked for portals in every closet she’s ever encountered, and has never sat beneath the stars without watching for UFOs. Her stories have appeared in The Sun, Strange Horizons, and Daily Science Fiction, among others. DEVIL AND THE BLUEBIRD is her first novel. She lives in Massachusetts.

  Jennifer is represented by Alice Speilburg of Speilburg Literary Agency.

• Foreword Reviews - https://www.forewordreviews.com/articles/article/reviewer-aimee-jodoin-interviews-jennifer-mason-black-author-of-sometimes-the-girl/

  Reviewer Aimee Jodoin Interviews Jennifer Mason-Black, Author of Sometimes the Girl
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  Watching the reviews come tumbling in before every issue of Foreword is both stressful and suspenseful: stressful because there’s lots of editing and layout work to do; suspenseful because we never know which books are going to electrify our reviewers, earn a starred review, and trigger one of these Foreword This Week interviews—always reserved for very special books and authors.

  Which tees up today’s conversation with Jennifer Mason-Black.

  coverLongtime reviewer Aimee Jodoin uses the words lyrical, touching, elegant, poignant, impeccable in her starred review of Sometimes the Girl, Jennifer’s queer YA mystery that leans literary as it explores questions of fame, writing, and integrity. Complex and nuanced, it is a book that we can’t recommend highly enough.

  Check out the four other YA projects that appeared in the May/June issue of Foreword Reviews. In case you were wondering: digital subscriptions to the magazine are free.

  Both Holi and Elsie, among the other characters, have held life-upending secrets from their loved ones. In what way does telling or continuing to keep a secret inform Holi and Elsie’s perceptions of themselves?
  I think for both of them, honestly, for so many people, the secret becomes secondary to the shame wrapping the secret. For Holi, that shame has a tangible container: her own body. Her understanding of herself is at odds with how she believes people—the actions of one person so easily feel like the beliefs of all—see her corporeal self. That she’s able to share that deep wound with Mouse speaks to her resilience, and to the part of her that held tightly to the truth of herself.

  Elsie though … Elsie breaks my heart. She’s held her secret so long and so closely that it’s completely reshaped who she is, who she might have been. A glass pane exists between her and the world, her own hated reflection overlaying all she sees. It’s stripped her of connection with everything dear to her, her creativity most of all. Her battle between supporting Holi and driving her away from a creative life is one fought between the young artist she once was and the master of betrayal she now believes herself to be.

  How do you envision Elsie’s life being different if she had continued writing?
  In order to have continued, Elsie would have had needed a reckoning with Tongues. I think that’s true in general for an author who bursts out of the gate with a big book, that question of how to move forward creatively when the reading world craves something recognizable from you.

  But for Elsie, of course, the question of creativity is so tightly bound with questions of truth and betrayal. I don’t think she could have returned to writing without finding some compassion for herself, some fury for those who treated her as a pen and not an artist. And if she had been able to gain those things? I believe she would have written deeply and passionately, would have created work that stared humanity straight in the eye. Her writing would have contained both the wildfire and the wildflowers that returned to burnt woodlands, rage and love every step of the way.

  Would she still have ended up in a quiet neighborhood in Amherst, Massachusetts, would she still have been a mother, would she have been a different kind of one, would she have remained a Red Sox fan? All our lives are full of these sorts of forks in the road. The one thing I believe is that at least some of Elsie’s shame could have transformed into grief, and then, hopefully, into healing.

  Near the end of the book, a note Elsie wrote to Holi reads: “Writing is a vocation I recommend no woman choose, as it may well cost her things it never asks of men and in ways she cannot imagine. However, once writing has chosen her, no woman should be forced to enter its arena sans sword and shield.” What “sword and shield” would you recommend women, writers or otherwise, wield in a world that demands so much of them?
  So many things, of course! However, given that we are living in a rapidly decaying capitalist system, I have to go with community. I say that as someone with very little community. I have debilitating anxiety that affects all aspects of my life, including human connection, so I understand just how high a hurdle it can be to forge strong connections.

  All the same, we as a species are not meant to live our lives in isolation. One of the great lies we’ve been taught is that money is our salvation. The reality is that we’re the ones to save each other. In the places and times that things have fallen apart, success has come from humans reaching their hands to help. For women artists, having others who cheerlead and challenge them; who celebrate their growth and mourn losses with them; who can help keep the lights on and bring food to share when the pressure to simply survive leaves little space to create … those connections can easily be the difference between a book and a deleted file. Community doesn’t need to be vast or specific to artists though, just full of love and belief and respect and evolution.

  Based on the conclusion of the book, I imagine your opinion is that a writer’s estate should not publish books posthumously without the deceased writer’s prior consent. That is my opinion, as well—that we should respect a writer’s wishes, no matter how desired their unpublished works may be. What are your feelings on instances where books have been published after a writer’s death in the past (Harper Lee, etc.)? How do you feel about the loss of stories we will never read?
  I’ve never felt that an individual owes the world their creativity. The act of sharing a story, the act of receiving one—is, at its heart, a generous and trusting experience. That piece of it has been commercialized almost to oblivion, so of course many readerships understand storytelling as a product, rather than as a choice made to communicate.

  In posthumous publication, simple situations do exist. For example, a writer with every intention of publishing work who dies too early to complete that goal. I’d have no issue with my family publishing a novel I was never able to find a home for.

  That’s not what you’re asking though—I’m just being skittish. I have compassion for everyone who struggles with the desire to further a deceased writer’s legacy, who feels it is an act of love. My belief, though, is that an artist’s work is a conversation with the world. In any passionate conversation there are hypotheses that we quickly recognize as flawed, beliefs that change as we listen deeply to others, fleeting thoughts we realize belong solely to our internal life. As much as I might love to hear all those unsaid things, as much as I might miss their revelations, I see intellectual autonomy as fundamental to the creative process. It is hard to destroy one’s own work; requesting other do it posthumously may truly be a final request for help, not a door left open for the world to enter.

  What books have you read that have affected you in the way Elsie’s book affected Holi?
  I’ve always loved The Little Prince. From the very first time I read it and all the many many times since. I was homeschooled as a kid, at a time when it simply wasn’t a mainstream thing, and I always felt a bit like a traveler in a strange world any time I was taken from amidst the wild things and set in more mass-produced surroundings. I also struggled with grief as a teen, so I eventually turned to it as a guidebook on how to live through loss. I can still recite parts of it.

  What’s next for you? What are you writing now?
  In terms of YA, I have nothing cooking currently. Sometimes the Girl is actually the last in a group of three sister books; Devil and the Bluebird is the first. The middle book has a direct character-and-timeline overlap with Sometimes the Girl, while navigating a very different sort of mystery. I’d love to see it in print.

  As for what I’m actively writing, it’s an adult speculative fiction about a girl whose ability to heal led to her being used to steal magic from other children. In a post-climate-collapse landscape, the now-adult woman crisscrosses the country on a quest for atonement while fleeing the billionaire who bankrolled her complicity for his own mysterious gains. It’s about the power of rivers and community and the human ability to change for the better. And it has a dog named Jack who’s a very good boy.

  Aimee Jodoin
  May 23, 2025

• Lerner Books - https://lernerbooks.com/contributors/16604?srsltid=AfmBOopVZHmtZtoej5Q_5hHqm85apJqhodcbAtYkna1JEv6qnV1ojn5A

  Jennifer Mason-Black
  Jennifer Mason-Black is the author of Devil and the Bluebird (Abrams 2016), which received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Shelf Awareness, and was included in the Locus Recommended Reading List 2016. Her short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, Daily Science Fiction, and The Sun, among others. She is a member of SFWA and the Author’s Guild, and lives deep in the woods of Massachusetts.

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  Interview
  What was your favorite book when you were a child?

  The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

  What’s your favorite line from a book?

  “And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”—The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich

  Who are your top three favorite authors or illustrators?

  Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Hand, Douglas Adams

  Why did you want to become an author or illustrator?

  Honestly? To keep myself company.

  Do you have any advice for future authors or illustrators?

  Be yourself. Really, the most important thing to bring to writing is yourself. The awesome bits, the anxious ones, how winter air smells to you and why that movie makes you laugh so much—the way you experience the world is unique to you. So don’t write what you think you should write and in the way other people do. Write what you want to write and in the way only you can. That’s where the magic is.

• Lerner Books - https://lernerbooks.blog/2025/05/sometimes-the-girl-an-interview-with-jennifer-mason-black.html

  What do relationships, art, and the truth have in common? Sometimes they are messy. Eighteen-year-old Holi learns this firsthand in Sometimes the Girl when she gets a short-term job sorting through the attic of an acclaimed elderly author. There in the attic, Holi discovers secrets that change the way she sees her own life and writing as she grapples with choices that will redefine her own path.

  Today author Jennifer Mason-Black shares her story as a writer, backgrounds behind her characters, and more. Read on to download the free discussion guide!

  Hi, Jennifer! Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
  Sure! I’m Jen (she/her) and I live in Massachusetts. I’ve been here almost all my life, aside from time in Maine when I was a baby. I was homeschooled until I was twelve and I homeschooled my own kids to age eighteen, so I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how people learn. I’ve worked all sorts of jobs, including research in commercial apple orchards that required me to count dead bugs on sticky traps all summer long. Weirdly enough, I loved it! These days I mostly write and keep a log of insects and plants around my house (outside, not inside). Strange fact: I have hundreds and hundreds of photos of bumblebees on my phone and very few of my family.

  Did you always want to be a writer?
  No…? I mean, I wrote my share of stories as a kid and more than enough poetry in my teens and twenties. However, I’ve wanted to be a lot of things: an astronaut, a veterinarian, a librarian, a speechwriter…I won’t bore you with the whole list!

  Those things have mostly been jobs, careers I thought I’d like to have. Writing has been more about living—on the deep-within level while also on the galactic. We only get to travel through this life once. When I write, I can cheat and experience so many more, those I wish I’d had and those I feared and those that I want for the people I love. I’ve always had space in my heart that exists solely for writing, but its door opens and closes on an unpredictable schedule.

  Do you wish you could live the lives of the characters you write?
  Ah, I left something out. For me, half of writing is about taking paths I missed when I chose others. I do it because they’re fabulous, because I’m greedy, because of a thousand reasons. But the other half is why I write melancholy things, sad things. I’ve dealt with lots of depression and anxiety in my life; I know about the sad and the melancholy and the scary. I’d love to say I put these elements in my stories to help others survive them, but the truth is that I write them for myself. To remind myself that it’s possible to pass through the tough places and find goodness on the other side. Or even to find it in a tough place: good people exist, moments of utter awe and little bits of cheer lurk everywhere. Growth happens. So it’s not the heartache I want to experience, but the compassion that helps us through it.

  Your new book, Sometimes the Girl, is out now. What can you tell us about it?
  Sometimes the Girl is so many things to me. On the most basic level, it’s the story of Holiday, an eighteen-year-old young woman who’s struggling. Within two years, her girlfriend has dumped her, someone she loved has died unexpectedly, and her beloved brother has attempted suicide. She’s even lost her connection to writing, the thing that held her together. Holi is adrift. To make money for a cross-globe trip with her ex, she takes a job working for Elsie McAllister. Elsie’s a prickly, staunchly private writer in her nineties who published a single brilliant book many decades ago and then quit. And Holi’s job is to organize her attic, which is stuffed to the gills. There are so many boxes and labels in this book! I have no storage space in my house—none!—so I obsessed over what Elsie could keep in hers.

  It’s more than just boxes and labels, right?
  Hopefully! Sorting through Elsie’s boxes forces Holi to confront the contents of her own emotional attic and the assumptions she’s made about others, about herself, about storytelling. She’s longing for her ex and what they had, and maybe for a beautiful young woman passing through town, and for her brother to somehow return to the person he used to be. There’s a rave, an unexpected night with her favorite band, her best friend’s baked goods, incorrect academic theories, porcupines under abandoned apple trees, and my own love of the places where I grew up and still live. It’s about all the things, all of them (whispers every author ever about their current book)!

  Are any of the characters based on real people?
  For the most part, no. I don’t like to write characters based on people I know, because if I like them, I’d rather just spend time with them, and if I don’t like them, why would I want to give them room in my writing? Elsie McAllister exists because I was interested in how people responded to Harper Lee’s release of a second book late in her life, but Elsie is utterly her own person. I know very little about Harper Lee’s life; I know everything about Elsie’s.

  I’d be a liar, though, if I said that no flesh and blood people made it into Sometimes the Girl. Mouse—Holi’s forever friend—exists because someone I love was going through a tough time and so I wrote a book for her. In that book was a character based on her so I could show her how awesome she was. That character was Mouse, who also appears in Sometimes the Girl because I’m now very attached to her.

  Is there anything more you’d like to say?

  So much! About writing, about life, about everything! But that’s kind of the point of writing books—they’re bigger than interviews and easier to cram lots of thoughts and feelings and ideas into. Let’s leave it at this: save turtles on the road whenever you can; read lots of books about all sorts of things; touch the bark of trees as you pass them; be in love with the earth and with other people and with yourself.

• Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb - https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2025/07/q-with-jennifer-mason-black.html

  Wednesday, July 9, 2025
  Q&A with Jennifer Mason-Black

  Jennifer Mason-Black is the author of the new young adult novel Sometimes the Girl. She also has written the YA novel Devil and the Bluebird. She lives in Massachusetts.

  Q: What inspired you to write Sometimes the Girl, and how did you create your character Holiday?

  A: Let me preface this by saying I’ve never read Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, so what follows has nothing to do with its literary merits. What interested me about its publication was the reader response.

  The connection so many people have to To Kill a Mockingbird is deeply personal. To be confronted with an apparent earlier draft in which beloved Atticus Finch is openly racist felt to many like a betrayal.

  Very quickly, the majority narrative became that publication of Go Set a Watchman was purely an exploitation of Harper Lee, now in her late 80s and likely misled into signing the contract. Surely she would never have chosen to let the world see her early work, surely To Kill a Mockingbird was the book she’d meant to write and deserved be her sole legacy.

  For me, that presented several questions.

  First, what role does ageism plays in such a situation? Second, what occurs in the space between an earlier work, like Go Set a Watchman, and a published version rebuilt from the ground up? Third, in a situation in which a writer subjugates their creativity to their editor’s desire, how might that affect their future art? And fourth, who should determine an artist’s legacy?

  Of course, that’s not the origin of Holiday and her part of the story. Some of Holi is autobiographical. For example, the town she grew up in—Amherst—is my hometown, and the love she feels for it is my own, though less complicated. I also was a young writer who quit writing due to a mentor’s opinions, in my case for a very long time.

  But Holi is her own person. I wish I could say that there’s a method to how I develop characters. The reality is that I stumble across a piece of life—a hat left behind, an awkward interaction, a passing cloud—that provides me entry into who they are. Then I just write and write until they come clear to me.

  This time I had a head start because Sometimes the Girl is actually connected with two other books of mine, one published, one not. I already had a description of her and a sense of mystery. These made it easier to begin.

  Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Holi and your character Elsie, an older writer?

  A: I think Elsie is very conflicted about how to relate to this young woman writer, clearly wounded in some way, that shows up on her doorstep.

  Elsie’s bitterness about writing is so deep that it cannot help but drive her to discourage Holi from following the same path. At the same time, Holi’s presence resuscitates some of Elsie’s feelings about writing—that passionate space in which nothing else matters—and what she’d lost.

  The truth, though, is that most of the time they are communicating on different levels. Elsie’s need for privacy comes from her fame, but also from the suffering through which that fame came to be.

  When she tells Holi that writing is no job for a woman, it originates from a place of history and experience and loss. When Holi hears it, she understands it as the words of an old woman who parrots outdated beliefs about women’s work being less than men’s.

  In the end, what Holi longs to hear is that she is a writer, that she should continue to write. What Elsie wants, I think, is to covertly communicate her own pain and save Holi the same, while also to believe the world has changed enough that Holi might succeed with her writer’s heart intact.

  Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

  A: Excellent, an easy question! Sometimes the Girl comes from a conversation I wrote very early on.

  In it, Blue Riley, the singer/songwriter protagonist from my first book, Devil and the Bluebird, says that in books sometimes the girl gets the boy and sometimes she gets the girl, but sometimes the girl gets herself, and that’s what she—Blue—wants in a story.

  There are so many great books that center romance, but Holi’s story isn’t meant to be one of them. She’s been so tied up in the lives and needs of the people she loves and her own fears about the future; the central question here isn’t whether she gets the girl but whether she gets herself. Whether she finds her own compass, whether she reclaims herself as an artist.

  I agree with Blue: sometimes these stories are exactly the ones we need.

  Q: The writer Mary McCoy said of the book, “Mason-Black never shies away from the hard questions and harder answers in this devastating, engrossing puzzle of a story.” What do you think of that description?

  A: Something I knew from the beginning of my drafting process was that I had to face a question that I, as author, didn’t want to answer.

  There were plenty of other questions along the way: how to allow close relationships to evolve, is it possible to move honestly into the future without healing the past, how do we trust ourselves in a world where so many benefit from our self-doubt.

  We all grapple with those at some point, and the answers we find, as obvious as they can seem from the outside, are often hard won.

  But this one question…I agonized over it as much as the characters involved did. Finally, though, I remembered that Holi’s grandfather is right: the hard thing isn’t knowing the answer, it’s following through on it. I knew the solution, both within the context of the story and in my own personal beliefs. I was just afraid to commit to it.

  So, I think Mary McCoy gives a fairly accurate description. Life is full of hard questions and answers—without them we would experience static existences, exiting the world more or less the same as we entered it—and I wanted the book to be full of life.

  And on a personal level, I also confronted a hard question, and it did force me to grow, and for that I am thankful.

  Q: What are you working on now?

  A: In life, sending my youngest child off to college!

  In writing, I’m returning to where I began, working on an adult novel with some magic, some apocalypse, and a bit more reality than I’d like.

  It revolves around a magical healer, who grows from a child surviving by bartering her talent, to a teen living a pampered existence built on her complicity in the violent theft of magic from children, to a woman on a quest to return what she stole while being hunted by a private army intent on seeing she doesn’t succeed.

  It contains environmental collapse and sailboats crossing drought-stricken plains and a dog named Jack and a circus and the power of community.

  Q: Anything else we should know?

  A: This is a dangerously broad question. A few years ago, my husband was diagnosed with cancer. I wrote lots of Caring Bridge updates, which were read mostly by colleagues of his that I’d never met.

  One of them responded to every post. I was exhausted and terrified, and the kids and I felt adrift and alone, and he replied each time with encouragement. Not false cheer—support arising from intimate knowledge of the struggle we faced.

  He told me his wife kept us in their church’s prayer circle, he complimented my writing, he told me he was so happy about our good reports. And he told me that he knew he tended to overshare.

  So, perhaps that story contains the two important things I’d like you to know.

  One, that I believe humanity is in a dire place, one where despair is easy and emotional shutdown is the choice so many people make.

  At the same time, I think connecting to one another on a human level, with stories, with compassion, with genuine love, makes a difference in our ability to survive and to take action toward not just survival, but profound, sustained, positive change.

  And two, I overshare. On that note: coming up on three years cancer free!

  --Interview with Deborah Kalb

• Books, Occupations... Magic! - https://kirstyes.co.uk/tag/devil-at-the-crossroads/

  2016 Debut Authors Bash – Jennifer Mason-Black – Author Interview
  Jun 3

  Posted by kirstyes
  Debut Banner copy

  I’m thrilled to be sharing my interview with Jennifer Mason-Black whose first book ‘Devil and the Bluebird’ is out now.

  DatB

  Synopsis and Image from Goodreads

  Blue Riley has wrestled with her own demons ever since the loss of her mother to cancer. But when she encounters a beautiful devil at her town crossroads, it’s her runaway sister’s soul she fights to save. The devil steals Blue’s voice—inherited from her musically gifted mother—in exchange for a single shot at finding Cass.

  Armed with her mother’s guitar, a knapsack of cherished mementos, and a pair of magical boots, Blue journeys west in search of her sister. When the devil changes the terms of their deal, Blue must reevaluate her understanding of good and evil and open herself to finding family in unexpected places.

  In Devil and the Bluebird, Jennifer Mason-Black delivers a heart-wrenching depiction of loss and hope.

  Interview with Jennifer Mason-Black

  jennifer-mason-black

  The cover of Devil and the Bluebird is delicious. How much input did you as the author have in that?

  I had no input on the initial design, which makes the fact that I love it so much more wonderful. The sole change I participated in involved the boots (they were originally something else). But that adjustment was really my editor’s suggestion; I just enthusiastically agreed. The elements inside the guitar all refer to specific pieces of the story. It was so fun to see them for the first time. Who am I kidding? It’s still fun to see them!

  I’m a huge Supernatural fan and was very excited to read about a ‘Devil-at-the-crossroads’ YA tale. What were your inspirations for this story?

  My inspirations are all over the place. I’ve known the story of Robert Johnson for most of my life and it definitely plays a role. Beyond that, all the musicians I’ve known have been wonderful, talented people who center their lives around music, but will never be household names. Their stories definitely influenced Blue’s. As do my own experiences as a writer…I’m interested in the roads we have to travel in order to test ourselves, learn who we are and what we’re meant to do. It’s really a story made up of bits of song I’ve heard and faces I’ve seen and unexpected kindnesses I’ve encountered—all sorts of things.

  Music seems to be important to your character – why?

  Blue grew up with music. Prior to her mother’s death, Blue’s family—herself, her mother, her sister, and her mother’s partner, Tish—had a life that revolved around her mother’s band. After her mother’s death, Blue turns to her mother’s guitar for solace. So much of her journey across the country is about her coming to terms with her relationship to music, with understanding that she’s more than the little sister singing along, the daughter waiting in the wings.

  We grow up fluent in the languages of our parents. Not merely the spoken ones, but the creative ones that emerge in songs, or quilts, or novels. These things we learn sitting in our parents’ laps become part of us. Eventually, though, we become our own people, and in the process, we must develop our own relationships to these creative fires.

  Are you musical?

  No! Well, I can sing in the car with the best of them, but I play no instruments, have an appalling lack of rhythm, and would quickly starve if left to support myself with music.

  Blue’s price is her voice? How hard would you find it to spend a few days without talking?

  I’m a fairly silent person by nature, so I’d probably be okay. On the other hand, I’m a mom, and managing my family without being able to shout down the hall might be a challenge.

  On a more serious note, while writing Blue’s story I spent quite a bit of time cataloguing all the noise I make. Not just conversation, but the sound that comes when stubbing a toe, or calling out to stop someone from moving into trouble. Not being able to discuss Shakespeare is one thing. Not being able to say “I’m scared” or “WATCH OUT” is something else entirely.

  Which writers/books would you name as inspirations?

  I have absorbed so many books so deeply that it’s hard to point to specific ones. As an adult, I tend to read with a bit more of a sense of wonder about the writing, with more questioning about things like whether I could handle overlapping POVs or create a captivating omniscient narrator. Which means I often feel less influenced and more challenged by other writers.

  Books I read as a kid, on the other hand…those are a huge part of how I write. When I think of influences, those are the ones I pick. Madeline L’Engle, Ray Bradbury, Agatha Christie, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, Lois Lowry, Julia Cunningham, Stephen King—that’s a very short list of the many writers whose stories have helped shape my brain and my connection to words.

  What are you working on now?

  I’m a little superstitious when it comes to talking about projects. Or…maybe less superstitious and more aware that it’s easier for me to talk about the details of an unfinished story than it is for me to write it. So, in the interest of keeping me from being lazy, let’s just say that I have several different stories I’ve been playing with lately. To be honest, it’s been a hard spring when it comes to carving out space to write. I’m looking forward to the summer and more time to spend in my head in productive ways.

  My new feature is asking authors if they were to rewrite a book which character would they Repeat, Rewrite and Remove and why. I’d love to know your thoughts.

  I’m actually pretty happy with this group of characters. Most of them have fairly lengthy backstories that only I know about, which means that what you see in the book is the tip of the iceberg. There are things about Dill—another traveler that Blue meets—that I’m curious about. Were I to rewrite DEVIL, I might hone him a bit. I don’t think I’d remove anyone. I get very attached to all my characters. Once they’ve made it into a final version, I don’t want to lose them.

Mason-Black, Jennifer DEVIL AND THE BLUEBIRD Amulet/Abrams (Children's Fiction) $17.95 5, 17 ISBN: 978-1-4197-2000-0

Cass and Blue made a deal after their mother died of cancer: they would always talk on Mama's birthday. Last year there was only a voicemail from Cass, and this year the call didn't come at all. Blue, 17, knows she must find her older sister. This urgency drives the white teen to meet the woman in the red dress at a crossroads at midnight and make a deal--her soul in exchange for her sister. But the woman in red is more interested in a gamble than an even trade, so she steals Blue's voice and sends her off on a surreal all-or-nothing quest in which the rules of the game, and sometimes reality itself, shift and bend. Hoping to find Cass along the way, Blue re-creates the journey that decades ago brought together her mother and Tish, her partner in music and life. Blue meets an assorted cast of characters on her odyssey, all wandering for their own diverse reasons. The woman in red is never far away, compelling Blue to keep moving toward the family secrets she must uncover in order to rediscover the voice that is authentically her own. Mason-Black's poignant debut novel takes Blue from small-town Maine, "where lesbian musicians were an oddity, and gay kids still suffered at the hands of their peers," on a tour of America's marginalized, her mutism eliciting confusion, confessions, and sympathy along the way. A magical-realist adventure laced with folk guitar and outcast drifters unpacks the bonds of family--those we are born into and those we choose. (Magical realism. 14-17)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Mason-Black, Jennifer: DEVIL AND THE BLUEBIRD." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Mar. 2016. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A446003712/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=23715715. Accessed 26 Aug. 2025.

Mason-Black, Jennifer. Devil and the Bluebird. Amulet/Abrams, 2016. 336p. $17.95. 978-1-4197-2000-0.

Songwriter Blue is alone. She has just split with her best friend, her musician mom is dead, her other mom left, and her sister Cass has run away. While Blue has a home with her aunt, she desperately misses Cass and decides to sell her soul to the devil to find Cass and make her safe. The devil agrees, but takes Blue's voice, including her ability to sing. Blue then embarks on a cross-country trip with her mom's guitar from Maine to California to find Cass with only a notebook for communicating. She meets other travelers, each on their own journeys of discovery and pain. Blue learns that you can help others the most by taking care of yourself first and listening to your own inner song.

This debut novel is a beautiful and lyrical story of discovering your own voice. After each of her encounters, Blue gains understanding of the wider world and comes to learn and accept her responsibilities in both the wide world and her own smaller world. As Blue owns her own power, she understands that some things are not taken from us; we give them away. While this is a standard message in books for teenagers, this treatment is readable, engaging, and engrossing. The glow of Blue's success lingers. Give this to readers interested in the music industry and music in general.--Sharon Martin.

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC
http://www.voya.com
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Source Citation
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Martin, Sharon. "Mason-Black, Jennifer. Devil and the Bluebird." Voice of Youth Advocates, vol. 39, no. 2, June 2016, p. 79. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A455183938/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=12425ea8. Accessed 26 Aug. 2025.

DEVIL AND THE BLUEBIRD

By Jennifer Mason-Black

Amulet

$17.95, 336 pages

ISBN 9781419720000

eBook available

Ages 13 and up

FICTION

In a sort of modern retelling of the Faustian myth that legendary blues guitarist Robert Johnson achieved his success by selling his soul to the devil at the crossroads, Devil and the Bluebird follows the winding and heart-wrenching path of one young girl who's trying to save her sister's soul.

Blue Riley is willing to give up anything to find her missing older sister, Cass, who left to chase dreams of musical fame not long after their mother died of cancer. Blue finds the devil down at the nearby crossroads and bargains her soul to try to save her sister's. She gives up her voice as collateral and gets only six months and a pair of vaguely magical boots in exchange.

Throughout her journey to find Cass, Blue meets all sorts of gifted and seedy characters. And as the devil changes the terms of their deal, she must re-evaluate her understanding of good and evil, all while hoping that a bluebird has a chance in hell of defeating the devil.

Debut author Jennifer MasonBlack's prose is fittingly lyrical, and her narrative always takes the most devilish of turns.

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 BookPage
http://bookpage.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Barisich, Justin. "Devil And The Bluebird." BookPage, June 2016, p. 27. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A455613015/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=9f06a0dc. Accessed 26 Aug. 2025.

Mason-Black, Jennifer SOMETIMES THE GIRL Carolrhoda Lab (Teen None) $19.99 5, 6 ISBN: 9781728493299

A teen gets a job organizing and cataloging a chronically ill author's possessions, an experience that helps her find her voice as a writer.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elsie McAllister has a "permanent A+" reputation thanks to her one novel, which is "read in every high school" in America. The recalcitrant and reclusive older woman has two goals: safeguarding her privacy and ensuring that the person she hires will do exactly as she wishes with her belongings. Holiday Burton's desire to earn enough to go to New Zealand and work on farms with ex-girlfriend Maya is an incentive to take the well-paid job. Both McAllister and Holi have been manipulated by male gatekeepers who had their own selfish reasons to stunt each woman's creativity. While sorting through McAllister's possessions, Holi discovers secrets from her past that were suppressed to make way for her "Great American Novel." Holi sees an echo of her own artistic self-doubts and vulnerability in the face of a similar exploitative power dynamic. 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. The stunning descriptions bring vitality to and convey the languid beauty of the Amherst, Massachusetts, setting. This striking work shows the power of intergenerational relationships to fortify queer artists against erasure. The protagonists present as white.

Beautifully written and powerfully uplifting. (content note, resources)(Fiction. 14-18)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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Source Citation
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"Mason-Black, Jennifer: SOMETIMES THE GIRL." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A828785078/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=3dd0b1f0. Accessed 26 Aug. 2025.

Jennifer Mason-Black; SOMETIMES THE GIRL; Carolrhoda Lab (Fiction: LGBTQ+) 19.99 ISBN: 9781728493299

Byline: Aimee Jodoin

In Jennifer Mason-Black's lyrical novel Sometimes the Girl, a despondent young writer goes on an "archaeological study" in the attic of a dying Pulitzer winner.

To save for a trip to New Zealand with the ex-girlfriend she still loves, Holi takes a job cataloging boxes in elderly Elsie's attic. Elsie is famous for a book she wrote seventy years prior. Holi feels rudderless after her brother Robin's recent suicide attempt and the death of a close friend; the distraction of unveiling what transformed a promising young writer into a cantankerous old woman leads Holi to question all she knows about death, art, and love.

Holi is mature and reflective as she extricates knickknacks and secrets alike. She asks probing questions of Elsie and herself while living in denial of devastating truths that challenge her sense of self. She thinks she has writer's block but composes lists of her observations like poetry; she keeps hidden an uncomfortable encounter with a mentor, noting "I didn't lead him on, and that might be the scarier thing because if it was something I did, then I could learn not to do it."

The closeness of Holi and Robin endears, as do keen details that evoke an impeccable sense of place in their academic town. The prose is elegant and poignant: a party noisemaker "unfurls with an unmistakable snap," while Elsie's attic is "a tidy landfill a microcosm of a civilization to be unearthed." Holi also remembers the "the little bits of [Robin's] death refused to return" with both fondness and regret.

Sometimes the Girl is a touching coming-of-age novel about healing and connection. Holi's story models radical empathy, and its conclusion acknowledges that language is the only tool that may bridge the gap between people who seek to understand each other.

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Foreword Magazine, Inc.
http://www.forewordmagazine.com
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Jodoin, Aimee. "Sometimes the Girl." ForeWord, 21 Apr. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A837432343/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=718c6d71. Accessed 26 Aug. 2025.

"Mason-Black, Jennifer: DEVIL AND THE BLUEBIRD." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Mar. 2016. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A446003712/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=23715715. Accessed 26 Aug. 2025. Martin, Sharon. "Mason-Black, Jennifer. Devil and the Bluebird." Voice of Youth Advocates, vol. 39, no. 2, June 2016, p. 79. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A455183938/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=12425ea8. Accessed 26 Aug. 2025. Barisich, Justin. "Devil And The Bluebird." BookPage, June 2016, p. 27. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A455613015/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=9f06a0dc. Accessed 26 Aug. 2025. "Mason-Black, Jennifer: SOMETIMES THE GIRL." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A828785078/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=3dd0b1f0. Accessed 26 Aug. 2025. Jodoin, Aimee. "Sometimes the Girl." ForeWord, 21 Apr. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A837432343/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=718c6d71. Accessed 26 Aug. 2025.

• Foreword Reviews
  https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/sometimes-the-girl/
  Word count: 344

  Sometimes the Girl
  Jennifer Mason-Black
  Carolrhoda Lab (May 6, 2025)
  Hardcover $19.99 (304pp)
  978-1-72849-329-9

  In Jennifer Mason-Black’s lyrical novel Sometimes the Girl, a despondent young writer goes on an “archaeological study” in the attic of a dying Pulitzer winner.

  To save for a trip to New Zealand with the ex-girlfriend she still loves, Holi takes a job cataloging boxes in elderly Elsie’s attic. Elsie is famous for a book she wrote seventy years prior. Holi feels rudderless after her brother Robin’s recent suicide attempt and the death of a close friend; the distraction of unveiling what transformed a promising young writer into a cantankerous old woman leads Holi to question all she knows about death, art, and love.

  Holi is mature and reflective as she extricates knickknacks and secrets alike. She asks probing questions of Elsie and herself while living in denial of devastating truths that challenge her sense of self. She thinks she has writer’s block but composes lists of her observations like poetry; she keeps hidden an uncomfortable encounter with a mentor, noting “I didn’t lead him on, and that might be the scarier thing … because if it was something I did, then I could learn not to do it.”

  The closeness of Holi and Robin endears, as do keen details that evoke an impeccable sense of place in their academic town. The prose is elegant and poignant: a party noisemaker “unfurls with an unmistakable snap,” while Elsie’s attic is “a tidy landfill … a microcosm of a civilization to be unearthed.” Holi also remembers the “the little bits of [Robin’s] death refused to return” with both fondness and regret.

  Sometimes the Girl is a touching coming-of-age novel about healing and connection. Holi’s story models radical empathy, and its conclusion acknowledges that language is the only tool that may bridge the gap between people who seek to understand each other.

  Reviewed by Aimee Jodoin
  May / June 2025

Word Count