Kindle Edition Amazon Scottish Books Category:  Historical Fiction Publisher: Theatricks Publishing ISBN-10:  154296735X Type: Fiction Pages: 122 Copyright: February 6, 2017 ISBN-13: 9781542967358 Price: $2.99 (eBook) In Scotland in 1859 women were not allowed to study medicine. Kate Grainger, a 23-year-old undertaker, is desperate to become a doctor. In Scotland in 1859 women were not allowed to study medicine.  Kate Grainger, a 23-year-old undertaker, is desperate to become a doctor.  She seeks the help of a mysterious man to help her in her quest.  She thinks she knows his secret - but does she? The Undertaker:Masquerade is the sequel to The Undertaker published in 2015.  Readers enjoyed Kate's exploits so much that they asked for more.  Kate is an independent young woman with psychic abilities and a knack for solving murders. Excerpt MEETING A HERO The train trip from Edinburgh to London was long and tiring. She travelled through the night and fourteen hours after leaving her home town she arrived in London, an overnight bag in hand, and headed for a nearby hotel where she registered and checked in to her room. As it was still early afternoon, she washed her face and tidied her hair and went down the stairs to talk to the young man at the reception desk. “Can ye tell me please where I might find a lodging house for single gentlemen?” Kate asked, acting on the information Anna had given her. The young man looked at her quizzically. “I’m trying to find my long lost uncle and I believe he lives alone in a small room in a lodging house,” Kate lied. The young man looked down his nose at her. “Well I could give you the names and addresses of some of these lodging houses, but no respectable woman would be seen dead there,” he said. Kate smiled. If she was dead she could probably find the place without assistance, but even with her psychic abilities she still needed help in the land of the living. “Could ye just give me the list and I’ll take care of mysel’.” He wrote a few names and addresses on a piece of hotel stationery and gave it to Kate. As she walked away she could hear him muttering under his breath ‘Scots!’. She wanted to turn around and say something insulting but that would just add fuel to the fire, so she swallowed her pride, held the notepaper tightly in her gloved hand and hurried out the door of the hotel. She walked along the crowded London streets, some with rubbish piled high and effluent running in the gutters. She gathered up her skirt to avoid the mud and horse dung that littered the streets. She knocked on every door of the institutions she had been given the name of, and was referred to even more residences. There were hundreds of lodging houses in London and the dozen or so she had visited in Whitechapel in London’s east end showed no sign of Dr Delaney. She decided to try one more before going back to her hotel for a meal and a bath, ready to try again the next day. The bricks on the exterior of the once fashionable lodging house were blackened by smoke emanating from the chimneys of nearby factories. Whitechapel had once been a prosperous district but the buildings were now run down and the streets crime infested. After she knocked, the large wooden door was slowly opened by a plump young woman dressed in a black floor-length dress, with a starched white apron and mob cap. Kate explained that she was looking for Dr Delaney. “Ye won’t find ‘im ‘ere,” the woman said in her cockney accent. Kate thanked the woman and turned to leave. “But I do know where ye can find ‘im,” the young woman said as she looked skywards, tapping her foot on the ground. Kate spun around, looked at the woman, then reached into her cloth bag. She handed a penny to the young woman who took it quickly and placed it in the pocket of her apron. “He ‘elped my sister deliver a wee one when no one else would touch her,” the young woman said. “Delivered a baby feet first and ‘er with the pox an’ all.” Kate tried not to show a reaction. “Where would I find Dr Delaney now?” “Not ‘ere, dearie,” the young woman said. Kate was becoming exasperated. The young woman was toying with her, then stopped smiling. “Three doors down is where ‘e keeps hisself. He wouldn’t have ‘elped my sister but ‘e was passin’ ‘er in the street where she lay, pulled out the young ‘un and told her to get to an ‘ospital, then he scurried off. My sister watched where he went. She went there a couple a days later to thank him but ‘e wouldn’t answer the door to his room. Queer one, that. Be warned, he’s not in the best of ‘ealth. Might ‘ave somethin’ contagious,” she said slowly as she closed the door. Kate was unfazed. She walked down the street to the place pointed out by the girl, and knocked at the door. An older woman, with grey curly hair and wearing a grey dress opened the door and looked at Kate with blank eyes.

Second instalment outdoes the first
In the second installment of the Undertaker we follow Kate Grainger as she contemplates how she can circumvent the social norms of the day to go to medical school in 1800's Edinburgh Scotland. But, as trouble usually finds our Scottish lass, this tale is no different. I loved the first book and I believe Carmel Audsley out shined the first with this terrific story. It's both dark and endearing.The characters don't feel real...they ARE real. The author masterfully weaves fact and fiction, the dialogue is authentic and the setting is spot on; so much so that you feel as though you are part of the story. This is a wonderful book and I don't hesitate in recommending it!