'A luminous, pin-sharp portrait of a true trailblazer. Mills's writing simply glows.' Zoë Howe, Author, Artist and RLF Writing Fellow at Newnham College, University of Cambridge

The Exeter Novel Prize-longlisted novel tells the true story of the woman who discovered the structure of DNA, only for three men to win a Nobel prize for the discovery

Driven by faith in science, Rosalind Franklin persists, even in the face of formidable obstacles, including the de-reservation of women from war science. Her story is one of hope, perseverance, love, and betrayal.

In Norway at the start of World War II, her place at Cambridge's first women's college is thrown into jeopardy, and her father urges her to join the Land Army like her aunt.

A decade later, a professor in London switches her subject to DNA at the last minute. What importance does DNA have in the scheme of life? Before she can start the work she must complete her Paris paper, and writes to the director of the State Chemicals Lab to ask if he will be named. She left Paris on the news of his affair, but they continue to write to each other in secret.

She knew when embarking on science, a gentleman's profession, that the odds would be stacked against a woman's success, but she hadn't foreseen her pay being cut on account of her age and gender, a battle with cancer, or the plagiarism that is rife among her male contemporaries.

Can she discover DNA's structure, and will the discovery ultimately be worth it?

Within weeks of her joining the physics lab at King's College London, the sonorous Maurice Wilkins returns from holiday with a mistress, unfairly seeing her as his new lab assistant. When his friends at her alma mater Cambridge University announce they have built a three-chain model of DNA, just weeks after seeing her lecture and shortly after her lab had unveiled their own model, she immediately sees that it is wrong. Everyone else thinks DNA has three chains. Her evidence proves otherwise. But will anyone listen?

This is the version of the DNA story that you won't find in the history books...

The woman behind science's greatest discovery has been variously referred to as 'an obsessive woman', 'difficult', and 'the dark lady of DNA'. Why was she called these names, and were they justified?

Written by former Wall Street Journal (PRO) editor Jessica Mills Davies, following nearly three years of intensive archival research, the novel aims to give Rosalind Franklin a voice for the first time in history. Her story is the most well-documented account of 'the Matilda effect' and its corollary 'the Matthew Effect' in history, whereby women's contributions to science and other professions are often ignored or worse, misappropriated.

The book is peppered with copies of original correspondence between her contemporaries, illustrating how three men got away with the biggest heist in scientific history.

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