Mayra

A Novel

By: Nicky Gonzalez

A twisty gothic debut about two former best friends reconnecting at a secluded house deep in the swamplands of Florida

It’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.

From the moment Ingrid sets out for the house, danger looms: The directions are difficult, she’s out of reach of cell service, and as she drives deeper into the Everglades, the wet maw of the swamp threatens to swallow her whole. But once Ingrid arrives, Mayra is, in many ways, just as she remembers—with her sharp tongue and effortless, seductive beauty, still thumbing her nose at the world.

Before they can fully settle into the familiar intimacy of each other’s company, their reunion is spoiled by the reemergence of past disagreements and the unexpected presence of Mayra’s new boyfriend, Benji. The trio spend their hours eating lavish meals and exploring the labyrinthine house, which holds as much mystery and danger as the swamp itself. Indoors and on the grounds, time itself seems to expand, and Ingrid begins to lose a sense of the outside world, and herself.

Against this disquieting setting, where lizards dart in and out of porches and alligators peek up from dark waters, Gonzalez weaves a propulsive, unforgettable story about the dizzying power of early friendship and the lengths we’ll go to earn love and acceptance—even at the risk of losing ourselves entirely.

©2025 Nicky Gonzalez (P)2025 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"I ate this greedily; I swallowed it whole. Beguiling and moody and strange, Mayra shimmers with supernatural eeriness and the mercuriality of memory. Some best friendships are tender; some overwhelming, even creepy—Mayra and Ingrid’s is all three. Nicky 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 mesmerizing, hallucinatory adrenaline rush of a novel, and Gonzalez is the future of horror writing.”—Claire Luchette, author of Agatha of Little Neon

“Nicky Gonzalez channels Shirley Jackson (something I do not say lightly) in this disquieting, mesmerizing twenty-first-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

“In prose as luscious as the ribs at our beloved Flanigan’s, 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