Cynthia W. Gentry

When Cynthia W. Gentry was nine, she self-published a book of short stories full of ghost stories and tales of talking animals, like the lion cub whose mother told her that if she roared, no one would ever want to marry her. The cub roared anyway. Today Cynthia writes stories about brilliant, slightly messy women finding their voices and navigating ambition and desire. Her debut novel Her Life in Ruins, a friends-to-lovers rom-com about archaeology and very illicit antiquities, is the inaugural title of akaSTORY, Abrams’ new adult fiction imprint.

Cynthia is also the author of five nonfiction books on sexuality and relationships, including What Men Really Want in Bed and its sequel What Women Really Want in Bed, which have been translated into several languages. She’s been interviewed by magazines like Glamour and Cosmopolitan as a sex expert, which she finds hilarious. She has a BA in English from Stanford University and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley. Cynthia writes about the literary life, parenting as an empty nester, and movies in her Substack newsletter, The Mind Reels.