In 1858 in Edinburgh Scotland, a 23-year-old woman named Kate Grainger inherits her father's undertaking business. It is a time when not much is expected of women, other than to be wives and mothers, and Kate wants to be neither. She wants to be a doctor but women are not allowed to enter the prestigious Edinburgh School of Medicine. She has a male friend, James, who is a doctor - he is smitten with her and wants to marry her, but she has made it clear that she has no such intentions. She spends a lot of time with him looking through his medical books to learn all that she can. She has drive...