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Pegasus
March 2017
On Sale: March 14, 2017
Featuring: Sarah Gilchrist
304 pages
ISBN: 1681773325
EAN: 9781681773322
Kindle: B01K5J6VS0
Hardcover / e-Book
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Mystery Historical | Thriller Historical
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 cityโs ramshackle charitable hospitals for additional training. The St Gilesโ 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 Sarahโs 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 patientโs, 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 Edinburghโs dank alleyways, bawdy houses and fight clubs, Sarah comes closer and closer to uncovering one of Edinburghโs most lucrative trades, and, in doing so, puts her own life at riskโฆ An irresistible read with a fantastic heroine, beautifully drawn setting, 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.
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