Kaite Welsh Books In Order

Publication Order of Sarah Gilchrist Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Kaite Welsh is many things, she is a journalist, critic, author, and was once Literature Officer at Creative Scotland. She has a Masters in Sexual Dissidence and Cultural Change. She also works as Books Editor at DIVA (which is the UK’s largest lifestyle magazine for LGBT women), and guest lectures on Creative Writing at universities all over the United Kingdom. She lives in Edinburgh with her three cats, her wife, and a ton of books.

Kaite Welsh is experienced in the field of creative project management, having worked in the department of Literature, Language, and Publishing of Creative Scotland, which is the country’s major arts funding body. Here, she established a mentoring program for emerging critics with the Scottish Review of Books. She is putting these skills to use on a one-to-one basis with consultancy and coaching for different writers that want to develop their career and work.

She writes the “Sarah Gilchrist” series of historical mystery novels, and is about a medical student who solves murders. The series is set in Victorian times with a strong feminist main character with a modern mindset. Her debut novel, “The Wages of Sin”, the first of the Sarah Gilchrist books, was released in the year 2017.

Kate Welsh’s short fiction, which features things such as: Greek myths, ghosts, and roller derby has been published in many anthologies. Kaite’s work has appeared in different journals such as: Cosmopolitan, The Times Literary Supplement. She also writes about LGBT issues in a regular column for the Daily Telegraph.

Kaite Welsh was shortlisted for the Moniack Mhor Bridge Award and a Scottish New Writers Award in the year 2014. She was also shortlisted for a 2010 Spectrum Award for short fiction as well as a 2010 Cheshire Prize.

When it is possible to coax Kaite away from her laptop, usually it is with the promise of things such as cheese or cats, she appears on television or radio and talks about feminism and LGBT issues. Sometimes, though, it is to talk about books. Ones that focus on LGBT issues and feminism. She appears on programs such as: Woman’s Hour, LBC, and Daily Politics to talk all about these issues.

“The Wages of Sin” is the first novel in the “Sarah Gilchrist” series, which was released in the year 2017. Sarah Gilchrist has just recently fled from London and a rather troubled past to join the medical school at the University of Edinburgh in the year 1892, which is the first year the school admits women. Sarah is determined to become a doctor despite all of the doubts of society and her own family.

She soon sees plenty of obstacles at the school. There are male students who are determined to push their female counterparts out, and professors that refuse to teach their new pupils. Possibly worst of all, her female peers that are willing to do anything to avoid any association with a fallen woman.

Sarah is desperate for a proper education and turns to a ramshackle charitable hospital in the city for more training. The St. Giles Infirmary for Women minsters to the drunk and downtrodden, the whores and thieves who have no place else to go. Sarah is able to get quite the education in this environment, with a group of tough and smart teachers. Lucy, one of Sarah’s patients, winds up in the university dissecting room as a beaten up corpse, and Sarah finds that she is pulled into a murky underworld filled with brothels, bribery, and body snatchers.

Painfully aware of how there is not much that separates her life from her former patient’s, Sarah is determined to figure out what happened to Lucy and bring those responsible to justice. While she hunts for answers in Edinburgh’s dirty alleyways, fight clubs, and bawdy houses, Sarah gets increasingly closer to finding out one of the most lucrative trades in Edinburgh. It puts her own life at risk.

The book features a compelling mystery with a surprising outcome to it. Sarah is feisty and funny, she is a Victorian feminist that is fit for modern times. She is easy to respect and admire, as she is pragmatic and brave. Sarah is a character that feels real the entire way through, and you feel like you get to know her entirely. The book captivates you right from the start until the very end. It is a page turning read that really takes you to the time and place of 1892 in Edinburgh. Kaite Welsh did a great job researching the period and her details are accurate. Readers cannot wait to read more about Sarah.

“The Unquiet Heart” is the second novel in the “Sarah Gilchrist” series, which was released in the year 2019. Edinburgh in the year 1893. Sarah has zero intention of marrying Miles, her dull fiance, and the guy that her family hopes is going to finish her dreams of being a doctor and restore her reputation. He gets arrested for a murder she is certain he did not commit, and she winds up being a reluctant ally of his.

Under the genteel facade of upper class Edinburgh, is adultery, poison, blackmail, and madness. Once again, Sarah has to return to Edinburgh’s back alleys, slums, and asylums while she discovers the dark past about one family where no one, even Miles, is as they appear to be.

It brings her back into mercurial professor Gregory Merchiston’s orbit, who sees Sarah as a protege. Will he be able to stave off all of his demons just long enough to be able to teach her the necessary skills to save her own life?

This book is a wonderful and engrossing read, and seeing how things play out in the conclusion are highly interesting. The mystery here had some nice twists and turns to it, and there are some excellent forensic and medical details that help bring this to life. Here is a book that is well worth reading just for the characters all on their own, they are written that well. The book has a romance in it that is delicious and daring.