Ma Llorona

"I cry for all of us who bear the burden of these times."

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One day at the river changed everything.

So begins the terror from the pale ones who remake the lands and the people to suit their pale vision.
But the ghost woman and her one true love conjure a plan.

Will La Llorona's heart be strong enough to fulfill it?
More importantly, when the time comes....will the people be ready?

In times filled with terror and torment, one woman's haunting grief rises from beyond to become the people's howl in the dark. Sometimes a heartache is so great, it belongs to everyone. Sometimes a healing is so powerful it holds within it the spark to change everything....if we're ready.

A queer reclamation of the classic Mexican ghost story, La Llorona, that spans the ages and the Americas (MesoAmerica 1500 to present day San Francisco) to reunite the people with their ghosts and mend what was torn apart.

In her debut YA novella, award-winning children's book artist and author Maya Gonzalez takes readers on an emotional and layered journey that weaves history with love, spirit with flesh, and merges ancient myths with current political times. Powerful themes of love, pre-colonial queer identity, sacred feminine, loss and endurance course through the pages as the story gathers and flows and gathers again to support healing, negotiate deep ancestral trauma and ultimately, transformation. In a style akin to poetic prose with a potent cathartic undercurrent that lies shimmering just beneath the surface, Ma Llorona's reach doesn't end at the page. Like a river, she will flow into your dreams, call up your ghosts and have you howling in the night.

"They called you La Llorona
And told terrible tales
But I know who you were
I know the truth
You are the woman
As big as all the stars
You are the woman
As big as all the land and sea
The river mirrors your face
The wind carries your wail
The grass and cool soil your beautiful body
When I am here
I am with you in total
You are never alone...
I know because
I am the woman
Who loves you forever
I will count every star and say I love you
A thousand times
Like our last night together, my love
I will tell the truth of your tale
A thousand times
So you remember who you once were
Your name is my name now
I am La Llorona
I cry for you
I cry for me
I cry for all of us
Who bear the burden of these times."