Cheryl Peña was born in San Antonio, Texas to a Hispanic-American father and British-American mother. She developed an early interest in art and language, winning first place in the National Language Arts Olympiad when she was eleven years old. She studied art and photography at the University of Texas – San Antonio, graduating with honors in 2000. Upon the death of her twin sister in 2014, she decided to write professionally in her sister's honor. Her first novella, a suspense thriller titled The House of Wynne Lift, was published in 2021 and won the Literary Titan Gold Book Award