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!

Thank you to Net Galley and Random House for this eARC. I've recently been rewatching Dexter and so when this novel appeared, set in the Florida Everglades, I ate it up. There's a sort of "Haunting-of-Hill-House" type vibe to this, though there were times when I was a little confused about the more fantastical elements and how they aligned with real life. I was certainly eerie, but I'm not sure the magical realism worked for me.

Mayra is a stunning Florida Gothic. Nicky Gonzalez weaves setting in a bonechilling way that sneaks up on you. Just like the swamp that surrounds the characters, the horror and intrigue grabs you and drowns you before you even know what hits you. This is a promising author who I will read for many years to come.

A very unique and offbeat story. It has flavors of thriller/horror, but mostly is about a girl who struggles with her identity. I definitely felt entranced by the writing style and this deep, toxic friendship that exists between the main characters. It felt like there was something missing in terms of a climax for Mayra and Ingrid, who had so much tangled history together it seemed like the ending could have packed more a punch. I also felt that the eeriness and haunting of the house could have played a bigger role in the story early on to really amp up the tension. Overall, definitely an interesting read!

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

Liked this one more than I expected to! Wasn’t sure it would be for me at the beginning, but once the narrative arrived at the house I felt much more invested. Hypnotic; atmospheric prose and insidious eerie vibes.

Best way for me to describe this book was that it was simply and wholly atmospheric, giving me the ability to craft whatever narrative I wanted to believe out of the events transpiring. It was a beautiful look into something deeply unsettling about the south and the everglades, a way of taking that feeling you get if you've ever had the chance to drive through them and putting it into reality. It was unsettling at times, worrisome in others, and made me wonder what was happing. Is the main character obsessed with her former best friend, or is this a narrative of insanity. I don't really know but I don't believe that was the point. I thoroughly enjoyed wondering what was going on all the time. These are the types of books that are aimed more at thinking rather than watching a movie play out with words.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for the eARC of this book!

Thank you Netgalley for the arc. It was a very good read. It was creepy and I loved it. I would recommend reading it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for my honest opinion!

This book was truly a five star read for me! That being said....the sapphic undertones were NOT enough for me!!!!!!! And while the ending was definitely fitting and made sense with the characters being who they were....I wanted it to end happier! All of those things out of the way, I truly adored everything about this book, it really did bring a sort of nostalgia for my teenage girl years too. Codependent female friendships and all! Seriously though, an amazing southern gothic horror read that you will continue to think about long after you've finished reading it!

This book felt like a fever dream ( and I usually like those types of books) but this one did not quite sit well with me at all. I think it was trying to do what The last tale of the flower bride was trying to do but it did not land. It like the vibe, the gothic and subtle haunting feeling. I liked the themes of talking about.a toxic teenage friendship and how much it effects us well into adulthood. I liked the writing but the story fell flat for me, so I had to do myself a favor and stop reading about half way.

"Mayra" by Nicky Gonzalez had potential, but it just didn't quite work for me. The premise -- a fraught friendship with slightly sapphic undertones rekindled under eerie circumstances -- had a lot of potential, but the execution never fully came together.

The book felt repetitive, circling the same tensions without much payoff. The structure was choppy, jumping around in ways that interrupted the flow. And when the "big reveal" finally landed, it unraveled into a fever-dream sequence that was confusing, poorly explained, and ultimately unsatisfying. If the central mystery is this murky and the resolution this ambitious, what was the point??? I'm all for a book ending with a sense of intrigue or allowing the reader to reach their own conclusions, but this was not that. This was more like... what the hell was that? and not in a good way.

That said, Gonzalez has a spark in her writing and I'll give her next book another shot. But Mayra left me underwhelemed.

Thank you to Net Galley and Random House for the advance copy.

pretty awesomely creepy at points although the word gothic is about 100% not how i'd describe this. it feels like it should draw more comparisons to smth like Rouge then a gothic. 4 stars. tysm for the arc.