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The Wages of Sin

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The Wages of Sin

By: Kaite Welsh
Narrated by: Emily Pennant-Rea
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About this listen

An irresistible mystery set in 1890s Edinburgh, Kaite Welsh's The Wages of Sin features a female medical student turned detective and will thrill fans of Sarah Waters and Antonia Hodgson.

Sarah Gilchrist has fled from London to Edinburgh in disgrace and is determined to become a doctor, despite the misgivings of her family and society. As part of the University of Edinburgh's first intake of female medical students, Sarah comes up against resistance from lecturers, her male contemporaries, and - perhaps worst of all - her fellow women, who will do anything to avoid being associated with a fallen woman....

When one of Sarah's patients turns up in the university dissecting room as a battered corpse, Sarah finds herself drawn into Edinburgh's dangerous underworld of bribery, brothels and body snatchers - and a confrontation with her own past.

©2017 Kaite Welsh (P)2017 Headline Publishing Group Limited Historical Mystery Fiction Scotland Suspense
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I thoroughly enjoyed this murder mystery set in 19th century Edinburgh. I listened to it with an A to Z of Edinburgh on my lap so that I could check out all the place names and follow the various journeys described around the city. How good was the book? Well, when I had finished it I immediately purchased the follow-up novel by the same author, which is called 'The Unquiet Heart' and I am just about to start listening to that.

Murder mystery set in 19th century Edinburgh

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I can't wait to hear more about this amazing detective. So well written and such an engaging story.

Wonderful

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I honestly have no real words to describe how good this was. I started this book at around 12pm and finished at 10:30pm the very same day. It was THAT good.

I love anything that's set in the 19th century because it always provides a good backdrop for any sort of plot, and this is no different. Kaite Welsh has created a fabulous set of characters with a very detailed environment. I'm looking forward to delving into the sequel!!

An absolute fantastic historical mystery!

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This was frustratingly close to being great! I loved the premise of an inquisitive, rebellious young female medical student in nineteenth-century Edinburgh, but it was let down by the narration. It is read at breakneck speed - I actually listened to most of it slowed down to 0.75x just to make it intelligible. Then there are the deeply annoying mispronunciations of several key Edinburgh terms - one of the main characters’ names is Merchiston, and the narrator pronounces the ‘ch’ as in ‘church’, whereas it should be closer to a ‘k’ sound. This might sound like a petty quibble, but Merchiston is a very commonly heard word, as it is the name of a whole area of Edinburgh as well as a school, and hearing it mispronounced over and over again was so irritating! Other offenders were ‘Teviot’ (should be Teeviot not Tehviot) and ‘Cockburn Street’ (the ‘ck’ is silent) - though these mercifully did not crop up so frequently. A shame, as the story itself had a lot of promise!

Nearly good!

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Good book, although the narrator pronouncing wean as "ween" was jarring 😂. Scottish accents on Audible will never cease to be painful.

Enjoyable Victorian Mystery

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