Mayra

An eerie, hypnotic debut about friendship, desire, and memory set against the sultry backdrop of Florida’s swamplands.“A mesmerizing, hallucinatory adrenaline rush of a novel.”—Claire Luchette, author of Agatha of Little NeonLONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZEIt’s been years since Ingrid has heard from her childhood best friend, Mayra, a fearless rebel who fled their hometown of Hialeah, a Cuban neighborhood just west of Miami, for college in the Northeast. But when Mayra calls out of the blue to invite Ingrid to a weekend getaway at a house in the Everglades, she impulsively accepts.

‘Nicky Gonzalez channels Shirley Jackson (something I do not say lightly) in this disquieting, mesmerising 21st century southern gothic. In Mayra, the hazy borders of friendship and identity are blurred, made uncanny and dangerous, and I was hooked from paragraph one.'

-- Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie and A Head Full of Ghosts

‘I ate this greedily; I swallowed it whole. Beguiling and moody and strange, Mayra shimmers with supernatural eeriness and the mercuriality of memory … Gonzalez unspools all the disorienting, lonely-making work of getting unstuck and finding home and bliss ― then, she terrifies you, has you turning pages while you’re reaching for your keys, checking the locks, wishing you could text Ingrid and urge her to get a grip. This is a mesmerising, hallucinatory adrenaline rush of a novel, and Gonzalez is the future of horror writing.’

-- Claire Luchette, author of Agatha of Little Neon

‘The story that unfolds between Mayra and Ingrid lovingly embodies the vibrant beauty of Hialeah and the Florida Everglades … Mayra is a haunting testament to the literal terror of being consumed by the very thing you’re trying to escape.’

-- Jennine Capó Crucet, author of Say Hello to My Little Friend