i received this as a widget, but it is sadly not my cup of tea. i dnf’d after giving horror a try but i did not connect with the story of the writing style- this is purely personal preference!!

i thought this book was fine! it had a great premise, but it felt overall rushed. i saw this book marketed as a horror, but tbh i wouldn’t classify it as such. the only true “horror” aspect in my opinion is with the climax at the end, but even that was rushed and could have been fleshed out more to be more horror-like.

if you like fast paced books with weird main characters, this book is definitely for you

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

This is such an impressive, original debut novel!! I don’t know what I was expecting going into this to be honest. I was just drawn in instantly by the cover and further by the description of the book. Everything about it is the perfect setup, an old toxic friendship, a house deep in the woods of the Florida swamplands, and a surprise creepy boyfriend. I could relate to the all consuming childhood friendship and have to admit I would also be tempted to drive out to a remote location on a whim to experience that intoxicated feeling of deep connection again. As the story progresses, it becomes increasingly dreamlike and harder to follow. This is the point. It’s what made this book so unique to me! The ending was not cut and dry either, bringing up many contradictory feelings. At first I gave this book 4 stars but as I thought about it more, the impact it had on me brings this to an easy 5 star read. I’ll be one of the first to read Nicky Gonzalez’s next work of art. I’m impatiently waiting!!!

This novel is all vibes, not much in terms of plot. I kept waiting for something momentous to happen but it never came. I like reading about estranged friendships and this story definitely delivered that. Also I like that the story takes place in the Florida Everglades. It gave this book an eerie and unsettling feel. The writing style wasn’t my favorite though. The dialogue and descriptions felt a little hokey and awkward from time to time. Parts of the prose felt young adult to me, I don’t know if that was intentional since the protagonists are childhood friends. Maya is an interesting little book, but lacked depth and failed to impress me at its conclusion.

Mayra is the kind of book that sinks its teeth into you—not with plot twists or action, but with its thick, humid atmosphere and eerie sense of unease. Nicky Gonzalez’s writing is lush and hypnotic, and the Everglades setting feels alive, pulsing with heat, danger, and something just beneath the surface. The novel nails the strange, heady pull of old friendships, especially the ones tinged with longing and rivalry.

That said, the story moves like it’s wading through knee-deep swamp water. There’s a lot of mood, a lot of tension, and a lot of introspection, but not much actually happens. The sense of time stretching and warping is intentional, but it sometimes makes the reading experience feel stagnant rather than immersive.

An interesting study in female friendships this take on the Southern Gothic had enough twists and cliffhangers to keep me reading. If you liked Wide Sargasso Sea more than Wuthering Heights this book might be for you.

Ingrid gets a call from her former friend Mayra, inviting her to a house in the Florida Everglades for a long weekend, taking the change to reconnect Ingrid follows the strange directions to a mysterious house in the middle of nowhere. The house, much like a Venus Flytrap, lures them in and soon the days begin to blur together.

Ingrid discovers a mysterious journal by another woman lured to the house and begins to piece together clues that all is not as it seems.

Part supernatural thriller, part character driven study this book is very here for the vibes. I enjoyed reading it, I found it hard to put down but I was ultimately a little disappointed in the ending. I rarely think books could be longer (usually my critiques say make it shorter) but I wish there had been an epilogue or some sort of glimpse into what happens to Ingrid and Mayra after the events of the book take place.

What a strange and wonderfully eccentric little book! The first two thirds unfold as a quiet, slice of life story about two friends, who after drifting apart after college, rekindle their friendship. With subtle tensions simmering beneath the surface, I was unsure where this story was going. Then, in the final third, the novel takes a sharp turn into bizarre speculative fiction, but the transition is handled masterfully. Both sides of this shapeshifting story are equally compelling, making for a truly unique reading experience. It’s beautifully written, and if you enjoy quirky, quick reads with an unexpected twist, this one is definitely worth picking up.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Random House Publishing, and Nicky Gonzalez for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

In "Mayra," Nicky Gonzalez crafts an eerie and hypnotic tale set against the sultry backdrop of Florida’s swamplands. The story follows Ingrid, who receives a sudden invitation from her childhood friend, Mayra, to join her for a weekend getaway in the Everglades. Despite years of silence and a history of unresolved issues, Ingrid accepts and finds herself drawn into a mysterious and unsettling reunion. The remote house, located deep within the swamps, is shrouded in danger and mystery. As Ingrid reconnects with Mayra, she encounters not only the sharp-tongued and captivating friend she remembers but also Mayra's new boyfriend, Benji. As the trio navigates their time together, exploring the labyrinthine house and its grounds, past tensions resurface, and Ingrid begins to lose her sense of self amidst the surreal and disorienting setting. The narrative delves into themes of friendship, desire, and memory, exploring the lengths one might go to for love and acceptance.

My experience with "Mayra" was mixed. While I appreciated the atmospheric and creepy setting of the Florida Everglades, reminiscent of a slow-burn thriller, the book ultimately took an unexpected turn. The first portion of the novel was enjoyable, with flashbacks to Ingrid and Mayra's teenage years providing depth to their complex relationship. However, as the story progressed, it veered into a bizarre fever dream, which deviated from my initial expectations of a narrative similar to "Where the Crawdads Sing." The exploration of a toxic teenage friendship was intriguing, yet the final pages left me puzzled rather than satisfied. Despite its strangeness, "Mayra" offers a unique reading experience, particularly for those who appreciate stories that blur the line between reality and the surreal.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was really looking forward to this story when Random House Publishing reached out to see if I wanted to read it and it is very much a southern gothic horror novel but it is a very sloooooooooooow burn book that left me feeling like Alice when she fell down the rabbit hole.

Mayra is a story about a girl named Ingrid who one day gets a call from her childhood friend Mayra who invites her out to a secluded house in the Everglades. However we learn that Ingrid and Mayra have a very complicated friendship and once out of high school they grew apart.

The reason I felt like Alice falling was because, this book goes from dark thriller to a random and weird meditation on the complexity of female friendships with a lot of unresolved trauma. Also I would loosely say this "horror", because horror wise I was felt wanting a lot more.

HOWEVER, I will say though Nicky's writing is phenomenal and she did a wonderful job of making the story very atmospheric with the whole swamp/marshlands vibes in the middle of nowhere Florida. Reading about Ingrid descent into madness makes you realize how sometimes our own identities are impacted by our friendships.

If you want something unsettling, weird, and has a gothic vibe then I do recommend this for you. But, personally this just wasn't my fave or a top read for me

A huge thank you though to Netgalley and Random House Publishing group for an ARC of Mayra, which is expected to publish on July 22, 2025.

A solid book. Entertaining and decent paced for most of the story. I was just hoping for something more spooky.

The setting of this book elicits the unsettling wildness of the Everglades and leads the reader on a harrowing journey there and back again...in so many ways. Like Mexican Gothic and The Fall Of The House Of Usher the true setting is a mysterious and misleading manor home where the characters are at odds with the environment, and memory itself. True to gothic form the narrative stews, slow as the the mucky Florida swamp waters, but the slow burn belies the scarier truth: we can never outrun destiny.

2.5 stars...first off thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this eARC. I really wanted to like this book but it kind of fell flat for me. Nothing really happened until like the last 15% of the book. So I was bored for a majority of the book but I finished it because I wanted to give this book a fair shot and maybe time to redeem itself. I thought it was going to be more than it was. No real character development the plot was meh. I don't think I would recommend it in all honesty.

Described as a gothic novel about two friends reconnecting in the Florida swampland, I expected something different. What I read were disconnected pieces that didn’t come together for me.

The story is told from Ingrid’s point of view. She was an insecure teen deeply dependent on her carefree, risk-taking friend, Mayra. When Mayra leaves their Cuban neighborhood to go away to college, a rejected Ingrid slowly carves out a life for herself. But she hasn’t moved very far. She is still self deprecating and unsure of herself. Now, out of the blue, Mayra contacts Ingrid to come to an isolated house deep in the Everglades to reconnect.

The setting was beautifully described. It brought all the senses alive one feels in the Florida Everglades. Having lived down there, Gonzalez brought me right back to the way the air feels and smells, the creeping animals, the soggy ground. The house is strange and as the book goes on, it expands into more and more weirdness.

Mayra seemed to me to be more subdued in the present than she did in the many flashbacks. But the connection is still there. Added to the mix is Mayra’s boyfriend, Benji, who is a robotic caretaker. He added to the strangeness of the environment but didn’t move the story forward. He was just steadfastly odd and always there.

There is also a diary that Ingrid finds that really goes nowhere, Only to the partial experience of a young woman who trusted a stranger to take her from her mundane life and bring her there. The diary entries end before we learn anything that adds to the story.

This novel confused me. I found the ending abrupt and wondered if when Ingrid looked back on her relationship with the girl who loomed so large, how she would now think about her.

I would move it from 21/2 stars to 3 because the writing is beautiful and the setting authentic.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Random House for the opportunity to read this advanced reading copy and review it honestly.

This felt like a sticky fever dream and it was glorious. The slow build of understanding that creeps on you endears you to Mayra and the narrator’s complicated love for her. It was relatable, eerie, and visceral. The only piece I didn’t like was Benji and I can’t figure out how the author could have accomplished this without him… so okay, Benji. I guess you can stick around and eat some more cobwebs.

3.25. Stars

I feel like I slightly missed the mark with this one. There was so much to love about this one! So much, but I feel like every aspect I enjoyed just needed it to go a bit further. There was something held back.

This is about early friendship and how the strength of that bond and the circumstances in which is was forged can play into it later in life, when people have grow and changed. Also, what it takes to try and preserve it.

Ingrid has been invited by her childhood best friend to a weekend retreat. Mayra convinces her to traverse the Florida swamplands, completely out of Ingrid’s comfort zone and we can see the cracks forming in the facade already. Upon arriving Ingrid is surprised by the presence of Mayra’s new boyfriend, Benji… but it’s his lovely house they will be enjoying, so she attempts to have a good time. Something is off though. Something is off through this entire book and you can feel it. It is palpable and you are just constantly on edge, waiting. I thought that aspect was done superbly. The vibe of this book was off the charts.

I loved the back and forth timeline. The times we get to see of Mayra and Ingrid as adolescents and teens were some of my favorite parts of the book. I feel like most girls have had a friendship like this at some point in their young life. There is a toxicity to it, a codependency, but you also couldn’t breathe without them.

I just wanted this book to go a little deeper into everything. A little deeper into the friendship, a little deeper into the dynamic of the present, and more of other things that will get into spoiler territory if I mention them.

This was good, I just wanted there to be MORE.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. No doubt I scored this as a big fan of gothic horror, especially Silvia Moreno-Garcia, so if you enjoy her be sure to read this too. Points for big isolated creepy southern house! All horror aside, at it's core, this book is about whether or not we can ever go back. Back to that childhood friend that we were so close to, that as time passed we grew apart from, leaving an empty spot in our lives. Is it possible to recapture that kinship, being two halves of a whole? Ingrid is both hopeful and doubtful as she drives deep into the Florida Everglades following an unexpected invitation from her former bestie, Mayra, to visit at a secluded home and reconnect. Yes, you can hear the banjos from Deliverance playing in the background...

But who's this? A boyfriend comes with the creepy house and has a lot a creepy rules. These are the fun bits among the flashbacks and dissection of the relationship between Ingrid and Mayra. From here on the book seems to take a fairly standard progression to the climax. The addition of an old journal Ingrid finds fills in some pieces of the back story. This is a good effort for a debut novel, I read to be entertained, and I was. It will be interesting to see what she does next.

Set against the eerie backdrop of the Everglades, this novel is a hypnotic exploration of fractured friendships and creeping dread. When Ingrid reunites with her childhood best friend, Mayra, their getaway quickly unravels into a tense and disorienting experience. The isolated swamp, the enigmatic house, and the unexpected arrival of Mayra’s new boyfriend, Benji, create an atmosphere thick with suspicion and unease.

The author skillfully blurs the line between reality and illusion, capturing Ingrid’s gradual disconnection from the outside world. The shifting dynamics between the trio—fueled by old wounds and unspoken desires—add layers of psychological tension. With lush, immersive prose and a slow-burning sense of menace, this novel is both a haunting meditation on memory and a gripping study of the human psyche.

Fans of literary suspense and atmospheric thrillers will find themselves captivated by this dark and haunting story.

The publisher provided ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for an eARC copy of Mayra by Nicky Gonzalez.

I need to start off by saying that we need more thriller/horror novels based in the Everglades, as it is the perfect fit and so many eerie things have occured there. It certainly makes this novel more than just a power dynamic, it sets fear and a sense of unconfortable lonliness and watchfulness at the same time. Which Nicky Gonzalez does a wondeful job with in the writing, the immersive feelings from the descriptions.

Mayra is a wonderful novel based on the power dynamics of frindship, the ghost of who we once were, and the dangerous allure of those we cannot let go. Set against the eerie, inescapable backdrop of the Everglades, Nicky Gonzalez unspools the tangled history between two childhood best friends - Ingrid, cautious and introspective, and Mayra, magnetic yet elusive. The writing is lush and immersive, painting vivid portraits of the Everglades' humid, untamed beauty while digging into the emotional complexities of Ingrid and Mayra's relationship. Which will really make you look back on your own past friendships and relationship, wondering if you were in a similar area (it certainly gave me thoughts). The sense of unease is there from the beginning and doesn't let up, the unease certainly gets its help from the swamp, which is more than just a setting. The Everglades in itself is its own force, a living entity that mirrors the dynamics between Ingrid and Mayra.

Please note that this ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I will start by saying that there were parts of this book that I found intriguing. The relationship with Mayra and Ingrid was obviously complicated and the book does a good job of flipping from past to present to dig into that a bit. That said, it’s never really explained (honestly, a lot of the book felt unresolved… I spent the last third of the book wondering what the heck was going on). Second, Benji. I thought he was a fascinating character. He’s just the right amount of creepy (cough cough the window bit) and weird. He’s not likable per se, but I enjoyed reading about him. Lastly, the diary. The diary started out so boring, but then ended in such an odd, delusional way… I think it was foretelling what would happen to Mayra and Ingrid in that house.

Now, the cons: I still don’t really understand what happened in the ending or what the deal was with the house, especially the room in the house. Maybe we aren’t supposed to understand that.

Ultimately, it was intriguing but the unanswered questions left me feeling a little frustrated. I also felt like the book jumped around so much that I often wondered what I was reading about.

3/5 stars.

Thank you again to Random House for the eARC!

This book is about two girls with a very complicated friendship, Ingrid and Mayra. They grew up together, but eventually grew apart. But, when Mayra calls Ingrid and says she wants her to come visit her and her new boyfriend, with some reluctance and a lot of history between them, Ingrid drives herself to the house in the middle of the swampy Florida nowhere. This is where the story takes off.

A southern gothic tale set in rural Florida in the swamps is a new concept to me, and it definitely works! That atmosphere of the place and the house really sets a very eerie scene. I actually felt physically uncomfortable when describing the weird situations and happenings when Gonzalez would describe them, which I think is a sign of great readable horror. I will say that in this same vein, being in Ingrid’s mind felt like a great choice for the main character, as at times she didn’t always feel reliable, and she has very crippling anxiety (which I feel was really well represented, and I loved the metaphors she used with the balloon), which added another sense of distrust and discomfort. Then you bring in Mayra’s boyfriend with the really weird tendencies and you’ve got the perfect weird and scary soup!

Even though this is classified as horror, we do get a lot of tidbits as the reader of Ingrid and Mayra’s past throughout the book, more and more as it goes on and this keeps you guessing about what their relationship is really like in the beginning, only to have you resolute that even with the complexities, these girls love each other by the end. If there is one thing about me, it’s that I loveeeeee complicated characters and relationships in my books. And i’d say even though I also love an eerie and creepy atmosphere in a book, I feel like their relationship is where this book is it’s best.

And for this to be Nicky Gonzalez’ debut, this was a great step into the literary world. I will be picking up her next read whenever it’s time, and I’ll be grabbing a copy of this when it’s finally out!

Go pick it up on July 22 of this year!