If a historical story set at a boarding school with a splash of science and a whole ton of secrets sounds like your kind of thing, The Secrets of Lovelace Academy by authors Marie Benedict and Courtney Sheinmel is about to become your next favorite read!
Lainey Phillips has spent most of her life at the Sycamore Home for Orphaned Children, and it hasn’t been easy. To escape her hardships, Lainey spends her days lost in books, reading and learning as much as she can and doing science experiments in her free time. She’s certain that her situation will never change – that is, until a chance encounter at the orphanage open house event lands her an invitation to the prestigious Lovelace Academy, a beautiful boarding school founded by Ada Lovelace with a focus on math and science.
Complete with ivy-covered walls and privileged students roaming the halls, Lainey is honored to be there and eager to learn, but struggles to find her place amongst the wealthy, judgmental students and their intensely competitive nature. When rumors start to spread, Lainey worries that she’ll lose her place, until she hears about a secret society all about supporting women scientists. When Lainey learns about Mileva Einstein’s theories and equations, she believes that this is the key to solving everything. If she can help Mileva with her research, she’ll prove herself worthy of her place at Lovelace Academy. So she decides to travel to Switzerland, but the journey is a bumpy one filled with obstacles, and Lainey’s biggest challenge of all will be proving herself to Mineva – and herself!
From New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict and Courtney Sheinmel comes a historical adventure about a young girl plucked from a London orphanage to begin attending a boarding school with more secrets than she could imagine—perfect for fans of Enola Holmes.
Lainey Philipps has lived at the Sycamore Home for Orphaned Children since she was three years old. Now nearly a teenager, her life is hard, 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 within the ivy-covered walls of Lovelace Academy presents challenges unlike the ones Lainey has faced in the past. Her life of drudgery has hardly prepared her for the aristocratic airs and cutthroat academic ambition of the other girls. Terrified she’ll be cast out of the academy, Lainey grabs at her chance to prove herself by traveling to Switzerland to meet a female scientist crafting a groundbreaking theory.
Determined to prove her capability and reach her destination, Lainey must rely on her own wit—as well as a mysterious boy who has yet to prove himself as friend or foe. But the real test is what awaits her in Switzerland, at the home of Mileva Maric, wife of Albert Einstein.
The Secrets of Lovelace Academy
AUTHORS: Marie Benedict and Courtney Sheinmel
PUBLISHER: Aladdin
DATE: April 22, 2025
The Secrets of Lovelace Academy is a love letter to science and the empowering, brilliant women who were often overlooked throughout history. We loved the way this fictional story blended with real historical facts, and we think it’s the perfect read for budding scientists, history lovers, or just kids who love a boarding school story.
Authors Marie Benedict and Courtney Sheinmel are taking readers beyond the pages of The Secrets of Lovelace Academy, spilling secrets about how this book went from a basic idea to a fully formed story!
FUN FACTS: The Secrets of Lovelace Academy:
How Marie Benedict & Courtney Sheinmel Met
One of the ways a person can become a published author is by having a literary agent pitch their book to editors at publishing houses. With a good idea—and some good luck thrown in—an editor will buy the book and publish it.
Both of us have the same AWESOME literary agent. Her name is Laura Dail. Over the years, we had heard a lot about each other through Laura. But we’d never met. Still, Laura thought we’d be friends if we ever did meet. She even thought that maybe we’d want to write together. So she suggested a Zoom meeting. The three of us “virtually” got together, and it was instant friendship! We’re both passionate about writing, particularly stories about young girls and women. As mothers of sons, we knew we wanted to raise boys who would value those stories, too.
But it took a little bit longer to figure out what story we wanted to tell together, which brings us to Fact #2…
Almost a Time-Traveling Series
A few years ago, Marie wrote a historical novel for adults called The Other Einstein. It’s about Mileva Marić Einstein, a brilliant scientist who was one of very few women studying physics back in the late 1800s. She met the famous Albert Einstein when they were in school together (though he wasn’t famous back then). They got married, and many believe she may have helped with some of Einstein’s most important discoveries, though she didn’t get credit for them.
Courtney loved Marie’s book. She and Marie agreed they wanted to write something about Mileva for younger readers. Their original idea involved a pair of modern-day time-traveling middle school students who were assigned a school project together and traveled back to 1905 where they met the Einsteins. Needless to say, we kept brainstorming.
How We Came Up With Our Main Character
Once we decided the book wouldn’t involve any time-traveling, we needed to rethink our main character who’d meet and help Mileva Einstein. That’s how Lainey Philipps came to be. We knew Lainey needed to have her own story of struggle and triumph. We decided she would be the only survivor of a car accident that killed her parents. As a poor orphan in London, Lainey is tapped to attend an elite boarding school for girls who excel in science and mathematics.
Lainey is named for Courtney’s beloved late mother, Elaine. In the early 1960s, a teenage Elaine worked hard in school and was an ace when it came to the sciences, especially Biology. In high school, she competed in a prestigious state-wide science competition. For weeks upon weeks, she spent hours in the lab, conducting her experiment and tabulating her results. She was so proud of her work, and her advisors thought she had a chance at getting one of the top prizes.
But to everyone’s surprise, Elaine didn’t get an award. Not even an honorable mention. Later on, one of the judges happened to meet a teacher of Elaine’s, and the judge said he just didn’t believe a female student would’ve been capable of doing that work on her own. It was a devastating blow, and it stayed with Elaine for the rest of her life.
Courtney—and Marie—think Elaine would’ve appreciated Lainey’s story and felt extra connected to her plight to help Mileva be recognized for her work. We hope she’d be touched to know we named Lainey after her.
Marie’s Brain Might Actually be an Encyclopedia
✨What would a boarding school serve for breakfast in 1905?
✨How far was the clock tower in Bern, Switzerland from the Einsteins’ apartment?
✨Where was the port in France that Lainey would have to stop at along the journey?
These are all questions Courtney texted to Marie while she was writing, and she was always shocked when Marie would text back the answer within seconds! In addition to being an amazing novelist, Marie has a million historical facts catalogued in her brain and ready when you need them!
The Truth About Mileva Einstein
The Secrets of Lovelace Academy is a work of fiction. Even though Mileva Einstein and some of the other characters were real-life people, Lainey’s story and her interactions with the others are all made up. We can never know what really happened between Mileva and her husband. But we know these things to be true:
✨She was brilliant.
✨Albert Einstein’s most prolific period was when they were married, sometimes referred to as his “Miracle Year.”
✨Women’s contributions to science have been overlooked for centuries.
This book is part of our attempt to acknowledge Mileva Maric Einstein and all the women like her who never got their due.
✨PUZZLING MYSTERIES: Solve puzzles to reveal fun facts about Last Chance Academy, a boarding-school set story with a mysterious treasure hunt and plenty of secrets to uncover HERE!
