Double Helix

When eighteen-year-old Eli Samuels lands a job at the lab of Dr. Quincy Wyatt, he thinks it's the opportunity of a lifetime: working under one of the world's most brilliant geneticists while earning enough to pay for college.

But Eli's father has always forbidden him from going near Wyatt and his research — and as their professional relationship turns personal, Eli begins to uncover why. Nancy Werlin's Double Helix is a darkly funny contemporary romance wrapped in a genuine mystery about eugenics, family secrets, and the ethics of genetic engineering.

Told through alternating first-person chapters by Eli and Dr. Wyatt, the novel builds toward a shocking revelation about both men's pasts that forces Eli to decide what he can live with.