Author Note: The Mason List is a coming-of-age story that follows the life of Alex Tanner from the age of six to twenty-six. The novel crosses the genres of Young Adult and New Adult. The Mason List is a standalone, 118,940 word, full-length novel.
An epic love. An epic hate. An epic story that would last a lifetime.
Today, 8:15 p.m.
I hurt. I hurt so deeply, I felt the pain searing in my bones and jabbing like a hot poker into my heart. I knew nothing would make it better as the memories pulled from the crevices of my mind, detailing the bad and the ugly, filling my thoughts with regret as I slipped into the darkness. . .
When I was eight, my mother was dying of cancer, my father lost his job, and the bank kicked us out of our house. I was forced to move to the strange town of Arlis, Texas where my father and I slept in our car in the hospital parking lot. Desperate and hopeless, we lived on fumes of our former life.
Then one night, everything changed forever. A knock on the car window brought a family into my life that I only wanted to shut out. I hated charity and I hated the Masons. Well, except one. He made it impossible to hate him.
Jess Mason had the biggest blue eyes and ornery smile of any boy I had ever seen. He was a ray of sunshine in my dark world. A boy full of adventure, dragging me across the meadow of Sprayberry Ranch; a beautiful Texas paradise full of horses and tree houses that got us into more trouble than anyone ever imagined.
Jess was my everything as a kid until we grew up and the rules changed. Instead of living happily ever after with a boy full of love. . . I destroyed it.
Wow…
The opening line in the book is “I see the bloodstains around my nails”, and it continues with this absolute horrific scene. And you know, you KNOW something truly bad happened. I felt this heroine’s pain completely without having any idea what was going on. The writing was that good. This scene was set in present day.
Alternating between present and past, Alex (the heroine) tells the story of her mother suffering from cancer, the family losing their house, moving to Arlis and meeting Jess (the hero).
All the present day scenes continue with this traumatic event, and still the reader has no clue about what is going on. The “When I was” chapters goes from them meeting, going to school and then going to college. It was epic. I felt every single emotion in this book. The present day chapters drove me crazy! I wanted to know what the hell is going on. The turmoil Alex felt was gut wrenching and I experienced it right along with her.
It was heart achingly beautiful.
For a debut author, this was done brilliantly.
“His blue eyes spoke a thousand words all rolled into a heartfelt stare. They calmed the panic inside my body. In the silence between two friends, the air carried an entire conversation. His dark lashes blinked back a vow I knew he meant more than anything. ‘I promise this will not destroy us.”
“I was his and he was mine… I needed him. I needed him the way I needed air; a little bit every day just to survive in this dark world.”
“I’ll always have your back and you’ll always have mine.”“Always? That’s like forever. How do you know we will be friends forever?”“I just do.”
“We’ve got somethin’ that people look for their whole lives. We just found it when we were eight.”
S.D. Hendrickson lives in Tulsa with her husband and their two schnauzers. She loves chocolate, romance books, Oklahoma State Cowboys, music, Lost, chocolate, beaches, coffee, cooking, beautiful sunsets, Friends, chocolate, sad puppy stories, dreaming of Australia, guacamole, quotes, Netflixs bing watching, Dawson’s Creek, chocolate, hot tubs, exotic animal rescues, going on vacation, Friday Night Lights, writing, and of course, chocolate.
Visit www.sdhendrickson.com for more information on upcoming projects such as Red Dirt Claws and The Tunnels.
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