From New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict and Courtney Sheinmel comes a historical adventure that follows the young and gifted Lainey as she is plucked from a London orphanage to begin attending Lovelace Academy, a boarding school with ivy-covered walls that hide more secrets than Lainey can even imagine.
THE SECRETS OF LOVELACE ACADEMY (Book 1)
by Marie Benedict and Courtney Sheinmel
Aladdin (Simon & Schuster), April 2025
(via Laura Dail Literary Agency)
London, 1904.
Lainey Phillips has lived at the Sycamore Home for Orphaned Children since she was three years old. Now nearly a teenager, her life is difficult, and she doesn’t expect it to get better—until a chance encounter during an open house changes everything when Lainey meets a woman who invites her to attend the prestigious Lovelace Academy.
Fitting in amongst the many privileged students at Lovelace Academy proves challenging in a different way, though. Terrified she’ll be cast out of the academy, Lainey grabs the chance to prove herself by traveling to Switzerland to witness a female scientist craft a groundbreaking theory. The journey that includes a train, a ferry, and a mysterious boy named Gen is treacherous, but the real test is what awaits her at the home of Mileva Maric, wife of Albert Einstein.
Marie Benedict is the New York Times bestselling author of several adult books of historical fiction, including The Other Einstein, the inspiration for this book. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Courtney Sheinmel is the author of nearly thirty books for kids and teens, including the acclaimed Stella Batts and My Pet Slime series for young readers. Her book, Helen Keller, was part of Chelsea Clinton’s She Persisted series. Courtney received a National Scholastic Outstanding Educator Award for her work as a writing instructor at the non-profit Writopia Lab. She lives in New York City.
Between the World Wars, the six Mitford sisters—each more beautiful, brilliant, and eccentric than the next—dominate the English political, literary, and social scenes. Though they’ve weathered scandals before, the family falls into disarray when Diana divorces her wealthy husband to marry a fascist leader and Unity follows her sister’s lead all the way to Munich, inciting rumors that she’s become Hitler’s mistress.
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.