Maya Blue

A Memoir of Survival

By: Brenda Coffee

Narrated by: Brenda Coffee

MAYA BLUE: A Memoir of Survival is Working Girl meets Taken, a true story of love, cocaine, abduction, and survival, and in the end, Brenda Coffee is the last one standing. Recipient of the coveted Kirkus starred review and nominated for the prestigious 2025 Kirkus Prize, MAYA BLUE is a memoir that reads like a thriller, a compelling, fast-paced story that underscores the power of our voice.

"It was a fairy tale until it wasn't... " For a long time, that's what successful businesswoman Brenda Coffee told herself whenever she dared to look back on her twenties and thirties. The memories of what really happened were hidden in the back of her emotional closet.

At twenty-one, Brenda did almost anything her charismatic and powerful older husband, Philip Ray, wanted. Regardless of whether it was dangerous, adventurous, sexual, or illegal, she wanted to be the one woman he couldn’t live without. With unflinching honesty and written and narrated in first person present, Brenda pulls the listener into the life she once lived—and all the secrecy, madness, trauma, abuse, and danger that came with a brilliant and revered husband who learned to make cocaine in the basement, and after his death, when Brenda was taken at gunpoint in Guatemala.

The author has narrated this powerful and moving memoir, and at times, she breaks down in tears. MAYA BLUE is an inspiring reminder of our universal capacity to survive the unspeakable.

I can relate

I heard Brenda Coffee’s story on This Is Actually Happening. I can relate in that it’s hard to find my voice. I seem to be more of a people pleaser, taken advantage of those opposite from me on the personality spectrum that are more than happy to fill in the room with their know it all egos. Even relationships. I don’t like it on this end of the rope so I seek out stories like this, about taking a stand and finding your personal power