Discover the story of a woman who fought through a male-dominated field to unlock the secrets of DNA. The next big book by the New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie and The Only Woman in the Room.
HER HIDDEN GENIUS
by Marie Benedict
Sourcebooks, January 2022
Rosalind Franklin knows if she just takes one more x-ray picture—one more after thousands—she can unlock the building blocks of life. Never again will she have to listen to her male colleagues complain about her, especially Maurice Wilkins who’d rather conspire about genetics with James Watson and Francis Crick than work alongside her. Then it finally happens—the double helix structure of DNA reveals itself to her with perfect clarity. Photograph 51. But Rosalind never could have predicted how far her colleagues would go to erase her names from the history books. Marie Benedict’s next powerful novel shines a light on a woman who died to discover our very DNA, a woman whose contributions to science were suppressed by the men around her but whose relentless drive advanced our understanding of humankind.
Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years’ experience as a litigator at two of the country’s premier law firms and for Fortune 500 companies. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Boston College with a focus in history and art history and a cum laude graduate of the Boston University School of Law. Marie, the author of The Other Einstein, Carnegie’s Maid, The Only Woman in the Room, and Lady Clementine, views herself as an archaeologist of sorts, telling the untold stories of women. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.
In a desert outpost of the turbulent Shi Empire, Ahn lives as a dishwasher and thief. When her magic finally manifests, she becomes the most powerful weapon in the empire, but also a target of the ruthless priests loyal to the Dragon Throne. Instead of being burnt at the stake, Ahn is saved by a mysterious priest and taken to the Imperial Palace where everyone seeks to use her powers for themselves. Meanwhile, his own family murdered and his birthright hijacked, Altan must find this new powerful girl who will be the tool for his vengeance. Altan and Ahn begin an uneasy alliance but soon, the truth and depth of Ahn’s dark powers make them both question whether they’ll be able to survive the journey, let alone restore the empire.
The clitoris is the final taboo in the world of gender equality. For centuries, science thought women were inside-out men, and anxiety about female sexuality framed attitudes and perpetuated inaccurate information. The reality of women’s sexuality was ignored, repressed, or defamed. THE SWEETNESS OF VENUS takes a rigorous romp through science, religion, philosophy, and psychology, to unravel the history of the clitoris, and then uses this context to explore the language, literature, and art around it. Much of the clitoris’s story has been defined by those who discovered and mapped her. However, even after the true anatomy of the clitoris was finally fully mapped with 3D imaging in 2005, it still hardly gets a mention in America’s bestselling teen sex education book for girls, and no mention at all in the parallel book for boys. Equality when it comes to sex has not been achieved, yet.