ECHOES OF MAYA

In Vincent’s novel, a murdered 8-year-old girl’s guilt-ridden stepsister and their wrongfully accused neighbor suffer disturbing dreams.

The setting is Oklahoma City, around Halloween, during a spate of disappearances of young girls—many from marginalized neighborhoods. Lauren is a teenager in an uncomfortably blended family, fortunate to reside off-site in a dorm at a high-end, two-year high school. Despite all the chilliness in her household, Lauren adores her 8-year-old stepsister, Maya, and is tasked with watching over the girl while trick-or-treating. But Lauren gets distracted by a surprise appearance of her flighty, inconsistent boyfriend, JT, and loses sight of Maya. After a frantic neighborhood search, Gabriel finds Maya dead, violated and stuffed into a car trunk. The local police make Lauren’s gay Latine friend Gabriel their prime suspect, setting him up for an indictment. Lauren is shamed and ostracized by Maya’s side of the family, and her own guilt compounds her grief (“I hadn’t murdered her, but it was my fault it happened. How had I missed Maya running off?”). She and Gabriel suffer upsetting and oddly insistent dreams; hers are largely surreal images of molestation by a masked figure; his feature Maya fleeing from him in a manner akin to the video games they played together. The dream phantasms point out clues that the police seem determined to overlook. Is the deceased child sending messages? And how can Lauren and Gabriel make any adult authority figures believe? This material fits the brief of a YA thriller with paranormal overtones, but escapist action and supernatural ‘woo-woo’ elements are downplayed in favor of more grounded themes and realistic emotions. Vincent gives bereavement an especially vivid treatment, along with depictions of LGBTQ+ and Latine marginalization, police racism, and a general sense of how the working poor feel when the walls close in. The story is haunting, and not just in the ghostly sense.

A rare YA thriller with a social conscience and real emotions.