Review – Strange Practice (Dr. Greta Helsing, Book 1) by Vivian Shaw (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 400 pages
Publisher: Orbit
Release Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN-13: 978-0316434607
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Dr. Greta Helsing series
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 4/5 stars

“Greta Helsing inherited her family’s highly specialized and highly peculiar medical practice. In her consulting rooms, Dr. Helsing treats the undead for a host of ills – vocal strain in banshees, arthritis in barrow-wights, and entropy in mummies. Although she barely makes ends meet, this is just the quiet, supernatural-adjacent life Greta’s been groomed for since childhood.

Until a sect of murderous monks emerges, killing human and undead Londoners alike. As terror takes hold of the city, Greta must use her unusual skills to stop the cult if she hopes to save her practice, and her life.”

This is the first book in the Dr. Greta Helsing series. Right now there are two books in this series, with a third book scheduled to be published in Sept 2019. This was a very unique and well done urban fantasy set in London. The story had a historical feel to it while being set in modern times.

Greta Helsing runs a medical practice for supernatural creatures. When a number of murders happen (and some attacks on supernaturals as well) Greta ends up drawn into the mystery and trying to solve it.

I really loved the characters in this book, they were just so unique and pleasant. I loved how their helpful and kind personalities contrasted with their vampiric and/or demonic nature.

While the main storyline follows a serial killer case, much of the story also involves Greta going about her day to day business helping the supernaturals. This was fascinating, Greta works to cure both unique and typical illnesses in a variety of supernatural entities. I also enjoyed the writing style which felt older to me, at times I felt like I was reading a historical novel even though the story is set in modern times.

I did have a couple issues with the book. The first of these is how the story randomly bounces between different POVs, this was a bit disorienting. The second was just how the writing flowed; I really had to concentrate to read this one and pay attention…I never felt really sucked into the story. This resulted in it taking me quite a while to read this story, however I felt like it was worth it because I really enjoyed the characters and story

Overall this was a unique book with wonderfully kind and nice characters. I loved the London setting and the creative theme. While this took me quite a while to read, I do plan on continuing the series. I recommend to those who enjoy unique novels about supernatural creatures that have more of a deliberate pace to them and a historical feel to them (even though they are in a modern setting).