Dubbed the reigning queen of women's adventure fiction by Joanna Smith Rakoff in Book Magazine, Gwendolen Gross grew up in Newton, Massachusetts. She graduated from Oberlin College, where she studied science writing and voice performance. She spent a semester in Australia with a field studies program, studying spectacled fruit bats in the rainforest remnants of Northern Queensland.

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After college she moved to San Francisco, then San Diego, and worked in publishing, as well as performing with the San Diego Opera Chorus. Through the San Diego Writing Center, she was selected for the PEN West Emerging Writers Program.

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Gwendolen received an M.F.A. in fiction and poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. Her poems have been published in dozens of literary magazines, including Salt Hill Journal, Global City Review, The Laurel Review, and Hubbub, where her poem was selected for the 1999 Adrienne Lee Award.

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Her first novel, Field Guide, was issued by Henry Holt in April 2001 (Harvest paperback 2002), and her second, Getting Out, in spring 2002. These two women's adventure fiction novels received critical acclaim. She then shifted her focus to the dramas of motherhood and sisterhood with her third novel, The Other Mother (Random House, 2007) and The Orphan Sister (Simon and Schuster, 2011). Gwendolen's newest novel (Simon and Schuster, 2013) explores the disappearance of a teenager and the shadows and secrets of suburban life.

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Gwendolen Gross is also an award-winning writing instructor and has led workshops at Sarah Lawrence College and the UCLA Extension online. Her guest lectures include appearances at the Fashion Institute of Technology, at Barnes and Noble's Educator's Night, and The World's Largest Writing Workshop. Gwendolen has worked as a snake and kinkajou demonstrator, naturalist, opera singer, editor, and mom. She lives in northern New Jersey with her family.