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Shop nowThe Wages of Sin
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Learn moreThe Wages of Sin is a page-turning tale of murder, subversion, and vice in which a female medical student in Victorian Edinburgh is drawn into a murder investigation when she recognizes one of the corpses in her anatomy lecture.
Sarah Gilchrist has fled London and a troubled past to join the University of Edinburgh’s medical school in 1892, the first year it admits women. She is determined to become a doctor despite the misgivings of her family and society, but Sarah quickly finds plenty of barriers at school itself: professors who refuse to teach their new pupils, male students determined to force out their female counterparts, and—perhaps worst of all—her female peers who will do anything to avoid being associated with a fallen woman.
Desperate for a proper education, Sarah turns to one of the city’s ramshackle charitable hospitals for additional training. The St. Giles’ Infirmary for Women ministers to the downtrodden and drunk, the thieves and whores with nowhere else to go. In this environment, alongside a group of smart and tough teachers, Sarah gets quite an education. But when Lucy, one of Sarah’s patients, turns up in the university dissecting room as a battered corpse, Sarah finds herself drawn into a murky underworld of bribery, brothels, and body snatchers.
Painfully aware of just how little separates her own life from that of her former patient’s, Sarah is determined to find out what happened to Lucy and bring those responsible for her death to justice. But as she searches for answers in Edinburgh’s dank alleyways, bawdy houses, and fight clubs, Sarah comes closer and closer to uncovering one of Edinburgh’s most lucrative trades, and in doing so, puts her own life at risk.
An irresistible read with a fantastic heroine, a beautifully drawn setting, and fascinating insights into what it was like to study medicine as a woman at that time, The Wages of Sin is a stunning debut that heralds a striking new voice in historical fiction.
Kaite Welsh is an Edinburgh-based journalist and critic and the literature officer at Creative Scotland. In 2014 Kaite was shortlisted for both the Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award and the Moniack Mhor Bridge Award.
Mary Jane Wells, an Audie Award–winning narrator, is a British actress, writer, and voice-over artist. She is a graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.
Reviews
“Narrator Mary Jane Wells is just about perfect in this mystery set in Victorian-era Scotland…Wells captures the gentle, self-deprecating humor of the brave, quirky heroine, and with impeccable diction, including stuffy English and delightful Scots accents, she delivers convincing secondary characters. Wells makes a terrific series debut even better. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
“What better setting for a Gothic murder mystery than nineteenth-century Edinburgh? Especially with ‘resurrection men’ plundering the cemeteries and lady ‘undergraduettes’ permitted to dissect cadavers at the university’s famed medical school. Kaite Welsh relishes these surroundings in her pungent first book, The Wages of Sin."
“An exhilarating and atmospheric mystery set mostly in the gas-lit streets of Edinburgh. Welsh adroitly captures details of the time…The result is a layered, provocative, and riveting mystery about Victorian dynamics and womanhood.”
“Sarah is a spunky but historically accurate heroine, bucking the most restrictive traditions in order to comment on them. Verdict: The first book in what will, one hopes, be a long-running series, featuring a new kind of historical leading lady, Welsh’s debut is an inspiring feminist tale perfect for the modern age.”
“This gripping, thought-provoking historical mystery will open teens’ eyes to the reality of life for independent women in the 1800s.”
“A moving, nuanced first novel. Superior characterizations and convincing period detail.”
“Welsh’s deeply feminist novel is an engaging, fast-paced tale full of twists and turns.”
“A gritty detective story as unflinching as its heroine, rich in well-researched period detail.”
“I absolutely loved The Wages of Sin, especially the funny, feisty Sarah Gilchrist…I was captivated, right to the very end.”
“It’s rare to find a truly fresh new voice in fiction. Welsh’s writing is intense, passionate, and dramatic. She turns phrases until they’re exquisitely wrought, and fashions from the raw material of language something beautiful and unique.”
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