Inspired by Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, All Men of Genius takes place in a Victorian London familiar but fantastical, where mad science makes the impossible possible.
Violet Adams wants to attend Illyria College, a widely renowned school for the most brilliant up-and-coming scientific minds, founded by the late Duke Illyria, the greatest scientist of the Victorian Age. The school is run by his son, Ernest, who has held to his father’s policy that the small, exclusive college remain male-only. Violet sees her opportunity when her father departs for America. She disguises herself as her twin brother, Ashton, and gains entry.
But keeping the secret of her sex won’t be easy, not with her friend Jack’s constant habit of pulling pranks, and especially not when the duke’s young ward, Cecily, starts to develop feelings for Violet’s alter ego, “Ashton.” Not to mention blackmail, mysterious killer automata, the way Violet’s pulse quickens whenever Ernest speaks to her, and a deadly legacy left by Ernest’s father. She soon realizes that it’s not just keeping her secret until the end of the year she has to worry about: it’s surviving that long.
Lev AC Rosen is the author of the critically acclaimed ALL MEN OF GENIUS (Tor, 2011), which was an Amazon best of the month, on over a dozen best of the year lists, and has been nominated for multiple awards. His middle grade novel, WOUNDABOUT, will be published by Little Brown Books for Young Readers in Summer 2015. His post-apocalyptic noir novel DEPTH will also be published in Spring 2015 with Regan Arts. His second middle grade novel, THE MEMORY WALL, will be published by Knopf Books for Young Readers in 2016. He received his BA from Oberlin College and his MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Lev teaches creative writing and lives in Manhattan.