HER LIFE IN RUINS

For fans of Finlay Donovan and Really Good, Actually, HER LIFE IN RUINS is a wry, propulsive novel of messy millennial womanhood in all its reckless, striving, desperately horny glory.

Brilliant but a trainwreck, Catherine Saunders is this close to getting her PhD in archeology from Stanford. All she needs is to finally decipher the hieroglyphic code on an ancient Mayan vase, housed in a Guatemalan lab. Then everything she's endured over the past six yearssummer digs in sweltering rainforests, a failed marriage, comically disastrous hookups in her ongoing Post-Divorce Period of Harlotry, and bloated ?student loan balanceswill be worth it. But then the vase is stolen. Every photo of it is erased. All evidence of it is gone. If Catherine hadn't poured blood, sweat, and tears into discovering and painstakingly preserving it, she wouldn't know it had existed at all. Forced by her imperious advisor to chaperone a tour of the Yucatán for wealthy Stanford alumni, Catherine is handed an unexpected lifeline when she learns the vase is now in Mexico, too, in the hands of a notorious purveyor of stolen antiquities. As with so many priceless pilfered artifacts, it's only a matter of time before it disappears forever into a mystery billionaire's private collection. Unless she steals it back. On a trip littered with pampered tourists, art forgers, and greedy collectors, Catherine's only allies are her enigmatic research partner, Dr. Yolandra Reyes; and her friend and fellow grad student Nick, whose sincerity and principles are nearly as unhelpful as her growing attraction to him. Will she risk her integrity to achieve her dreams? Or will her academic careerand her life as she knows itend in a tank of cheap wine and bad decisions?? Cynthia W. Gentry writes witty, adventurous fiction about smart, slightly messed-up women finding their voices and owning their desires. She's also the author of seven nonfiction books on sexuality and relationships, and has been interviewed in Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and more. She has a B.A. in English from Stanford and a master's degree in journalism from UC Berkeley.