Mayra by Nicky Gonzalez

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 Neon 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, 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 e