The Leap Year Gene of Kit McKinley: A Novel

Summary

WHAT IF YOU GREW ONLY ONE YEAR OLDER EVERY FOUR YEARS?

FEBRUARY 29, 1916: After an unusually long pregnancy, war widow Lillian McKinley gives birth to a baby girl on leap day. Kit proves to be a healthy, happy, and intelligent child, but unnaturally slow to age—growing just one year older every four years. For decades, she and her family must stay on the move to protect her secret—from insatiable newshounds, from Nazi scientists, and from doctors and pharmaceutical companies. When Kit at last can pass for an adult, she must decide whether she wants to stay perpetually on the run or form lasting ties. Ultimately, once the human genome is mapped and research on altering it begins, she will need to make some difficult choices about the strange quirk in her DNA that has made her who she is.

This sweeping historical epic—a race through the past century’s burgeoning understanding of genetics and eugenics—asks: What is normal time? A normal human? A normal life?