I thought this book had an interesting concept, but I was disappointed by the execution. The book was extremely boring and I found the main character unlikeable.

The first novel in the Dr. Greta Helsing series.
STRANGE PRACTICE is a great introduction to a new character and series. It's amusing, well-written and quite well-paced (there are some quicker-paced moments, as well as some more "quiet" moments that didn't disrupt my enjoyment of the novel). The novel is a very good melange of various sub-genres, including urban fantasy, horror, and mystery.
If you're looking for something a little different, then I'd definitely recommend STRANGE PRACTICE.

I was expecting this book to be a historical fantasy for some reason, but it takes place in modern London. In this modern London, monsters exist and Dr. Greta Helsing has made its her life's work to provide medical treatment for them. This in itself would have been enough for a book for me. At one point, Greta helps a ghoul tribe and the author gives ghouls a culture that made sense to me.

However, the book is also a serial killer book. There's the Rosary Killer (s), who leaves rosaries in the mouths of their gruesome killings. And there's a secret cult that produces blind, burned creepy monks that go off on their unsettling purification missions. Greta is initially summoned to the house of a vampire of her acquaintance because another vampyre has been attacked and is in need of medical help.

The killings and cult come together, obviously, and Greta gets drawn into the danger along with her supernatural friends.

I also enjoyed the surprisingly cozy nature of the book. Rainy, chilly London comes to life, as does the stately old house where the friends shelter. It's the sort of book that goes well with a cozy blanket and a hot beverage of your choice. Greta and her companions notice each others' emotional state and genuinely care about each other, and that was comforting.

The actual plot felt a bit by the numbers. And there are a LOT of ITALICS for EMPHASIS. That became slightly annoying.

I'm not sure whether I'll read further in the series. It might be good to save for another time that I'd like a cozy read.

This book is for someone, and other people seem to love it. It was just not my style and doesn't fit my store.

Such an interesting, new, unique take on some ancient ideas. Puts supernatural mythology and cryptozoology in whole new lights. Great characters, very good discussion themes. A winner for any library book club!

Strange, but engaging book! I love the idea of supernatural creatures being treated by a doctor! Too entertaining, just plain fun! The story does have a interesting plot tho'. Someone or something is murdering human and supernaturals alike in merry old London. Looks to be a series. I may have to go in search of follow up books!

Dr. Greta Helsing’s practice is focused mostly on treatment of the … differently alive. Dr. Helsing inherited her special relationship with a community of beings mundanes might be likely to term “monsters” from her deceased father. Shaw offers a delightful combination of the charming stories of a dedicated British physician, including the occasional medicinal cup of tea, or the applications of 3D printing technology for addressing bone deterioration among those who’ve been walking on their feet for centuries with a deeply ingrained sense of the truly weird, as something sparks a series of attacks on both humans and supernatural residents of London. The cover art, with its combination of woodcut style and the current London skyline visible in the background nicely evokes the series’ contemporary meets classic monster tale sensibility.

Gosh this book is just so charming! (That is probably the last thing I thought I would say of a vampire book but that's the best possible word for it.) Shaw really gets her Vampire/Demon/Assorted paranormal creature lore down pat, and that makes for some really cool moments throughout. This book is both comedic and suspenseful and feels somewhat like a cozy mystery version of Blade 2. It also has a great ensemble cast--something I'm a total sucker for--and Greta is an awesome protagonist. As of this writing, I've started book two and it is equally charming and wonderful.

"Meet Greta Helsing, doctor to the undead.

Dr. Greta Helsing has inherited the family's highly specialized, and highly peculiar, medical practice. She treats the undead for a host of ills - vocal strain in banshees, arthritis in barrow-wights, and entropy in mummies.

It's a quiet, supernatural-adjacent life, 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 sounds like a really interesting take on the Dracula mythology!

Dr. Greta Helsing has taken over her dad's medical practice and provides services to all supernatural creatures. It's been going pretty well until she receives a call from an old family friend named Ruthven who tells her that a vampyre has turned up at his door with a stab wound that is refusing to heal. After meeting with the stranger she discovers there is a secret group of monks hiding somewhere in the city and attacking supernatural beings. Now it's up to her and her friends to uncover where they came from and put a stop to it before everyone she loves is killed.

I loved this one. So. Much. I really enjoyed reading about Dr. Helsing and how she works as a doctor for the supernatural in a city that doesn't know they exist. I loved the relationship between her and a few of the main characters. I thought the world building was great and that the author did a good job of bridging the gap between religion and lore. Overall this was a super fun start to what will at least be a duology and is one that I am definitely going to continue reading.

A clever little alternaverse title. I enjoy these kinds of books.
I'd recommend to readers of Gail Carriger, or especially anyone who enjoyed the Kerri Maniscalco Jack the Ripper, Prince Dracula etc books about lady hunters.

Greta Helsing is a human doctor who has followed in her family footsteps and become a physician specializing in ailments of the undead.
I found this to be an unusual and humorous novel. I have read many horror/urban fantasy and books and I found this one to be different from others I have read. I think it is one of those novels you will either like or dislike but if you enjoy unusual subject matter and a bit of humor thrown in then I think you will enjoy this one.

Greta Helsing is a doctor, but not just any kind of doctor - her patients are those who are supernatural, or technically dead. (Although please use the term ‘differently alive,’ thank you very much.) A descendant of Abraham van Helsing, Greta lives in London and has a healthy practice of patients, and everything is going relatively okay, although she’s feeling a little overwhelmed. And with good reason - there’s a serial killer or killers about London, and when they start threatening Greta’s friends and client base, she works to find the culprit and keeps those she cares about safe, although this enemy will push Greta to the brink.

I honestly can’t say enough good things to say about this book, there’s so much I love about it. Overall it was just an amazingly fun read, one that I was instantly engrossed in and could barely put down. I was so emotional when I was reading it - not upset, but at turns excited and anxious, amused and impossibly fond. As soon as I finished the book, I reached out to one of my friends that had already read it and told her that I’d just about lost my mind reading this because I loved it so much.

Shaw has crafted an incredible world here, not just in terms of making the reader interested in it, but also making it believable. Greta talks about vampires as sanguivores, is trying to learn Egyptian and also ghoul to better communicate with some of her patients, she wants to write a paper on tissue growth and regeneration on the differently alive, she talks about replacing bones in a mummy as a routine surgery, and other characters discuss Heaven and Hell as well as magic in such ordinary terms I half expect all of this to be true.

The cast of characters was delightful. We have Greta of course, an exiled demon named Fastitocalon, Lord Ruthven of The Vampyre: A Tale, Sir Varney of Varney the Vampire (The Feast of Blood), and a British Museum curator/conservationist named Cranswell who serves as family friend to Ruthven, and also assistant researcher. Greta was capable and smart, and I found her a really compelling narrator. The horror setting was interesting but not particularly scary, although it certainly allowed for some grimness at times. These characters were all so wonderful, with their own desires and flaws and dynamics, and honestly one of the best parts of the book to me was reading the interactions they had with each other, seeing how they all got on and helped each other and looked after each other. And as fun as the mystery is, I’d really just like to see more of these characters, which makes me really excited to read the second book!

I find it really hard to even pick a favourite moment or character, although Ruthven was so wonderful, I loved him at the end in his floppy hat, and I really liked the relationship Greta had with Fass, as well as the one developing with Varney. Shaw has really done wonders here, I tip my hat to her and also thank her profusely for bringing these characters and their lives into my own.

I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked the writing style, the attention to detail, the word play, and the way that Shaw is able to twist and soften the readers misconceptions on monsters. Because after all, as Greta so nicely put it, monsters are people too.

It was a really neat idea for a book and the incorporation of the ancestor to Van Helsing (drop the Van) made it all mesh together. The characters were so likeable and quirky. Their perspectives throughout the book really allowed the reader, or at least me, to be able to identify with them and make them seem almost human. Their back story's, or at least what little is known, was really interesting and I can't wait to hear more. I also can't wait to see where Greta goes in terms of her relationships (no spoilers) and who she'll encounter next in her medical practice.The subtle humour throughout the text never failed to put a smile on my face.

This was a great little read. It was a fast paced, engaging, supernatural mystery. I'd definitely recommend this and I noticed that there is a second book coming out. Can't wait!

3.5 stars.

There were many things I quite liked about this. The basic premise of the human doctor who runs a medical practice catering to not-human characters is a lot of fun. The overall plot is also good -- the baddies are pretty unique, as well as being appropriately horrific and creepy.

But there was something a bit... twee? About the whole thing. The light tone of the writing just wasn't a good match for the horror elements. Some UF series manage to balance light and dark quite well, but this is not one of them so far - or at least not to my taste. The use of "famous" vampires like Varney and Ruthven as MCs also felt gimmicky and forced, rather than clever.

I'm interested to see what happens in Book 2, wherein Dr. Greta Helsing goes to Paris, presumably with Varney and/or Ruthven in tow, but I shall need to manage my expectations.

Literally one of the entertaining books I have read in a while. And I look forward to her other books.

I was really excited to get this but then found myself so disappointed! It wasn’t awful but it wasn’t as good as I’d hoped it to be! From the writing style to the story telling I found everything sadly middle of the road. It was fine enough to read but I don’t think I’d ever read it more than once.

I totally LOVED this book and cannot wait for the next one to come out. It's totally a throwback for me, as I used to read a lot about the supernatural in high school (15+ years ago) but I love the mix of supernatural and mystery and a hint of romance. LOVE!!

This book was sooooo not for me. I decided to try and read out of my comfort zone, step out of the box a bit, but nope. This was the wrong choice for that. It's weird, a little unsettling, just not the kind of read I was looking for. I felt off kilter the entire time I was reading.

I'm rounding up from 3.75 as I really enjoyed this book; but I think others will possibly disagree with me. There are a number of small annoyances in Strange Practice and some of its oddness distracts from the story itself.

Vocabulary
I had to look up multiple words while reading. This is something that can be both good and bad. It can be educational to learn new words, but it can also just be snobbery that has an author including those words. It doesn't help that Vivian Shaw has actually created new words in order to support her variety of medical conditions for the supernatural.

Supernatural conditions
This is probably one of the most unique things in Strange Practice that sets it above other paranormal/supernatural stories. There are different kinds of vampires. For example, some are deathly allergic to garlic, others have sun allergy, some need blood of a virgin (not kidding!) and whatnot. Shaw has set up an elaborate world of supernatural beings (inside our existing world) in order to support her main characters job of doctor to the supernatural. From baby ghouls with ear infections to knife wounds to mummy's that are falling apart, there's no lack of creativity in ailments that are treated.

Characters
Shaw has excelled at creating interesting and likeable (while still a little scary) characters. Many of them remind me of the first time I met characters like Jean-Claude and Richard in Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series. It helps that demons and vampires tend to have interesting back stories but it's still easy to do it wrong. Reveal too much (or too little) about each person/creature and you can collapse the intrigue. I thought there was a good mix and lots to still learn about our main players. I just hope Shaw doesn't get carried away with too much sex like Hamilton did in her series.

Plot
Which brings me to plot. There is a very solid, easy to follow plot that brings our characters together and gives valid and easy to recognize reasons for them to do what they do.
That said one of my sticking points in books is when things are too convenient. There were two major moments near the end where I rolled my eyes because things were a bit too convenient. This is definitely part of why this was an enjoyable book but not a five star one for me.

Religion
The inevitable topic that needs sorting in any supernatural universe is religion. It's pretty tough to have angels, demons, vampires, etc without touching on the religious basis for your beings.
Shaw takes an interesting approach to this by having some characters be directly from Heaven or Hell; yet others that just exist, no religion needed. She also sets up a world in which it's less of good vs. bad and more about a balanced existence.
This certainly plays well into my own personal beliefs and didn't rub me the wrong way at all (unlike the Supernatural tv show where Dean's quick conversion was a bit too in my face). I think it's a very thin strand to walk the line between not offending anyone and also being a bit neutral. Shaw hit the nail on the head for me and set-up a world and characters I got easily on board with.

Overall
I would recommend this book for folks who feel supernatural books are often too 'dumbed down' (ie: smutty romances) as there is a lot here to take away. The ingenious medical set-up of the beings certainly sets it apart from so many others almost like it in the genre.
I will definitely be carrying on with this series as I think it stands out in a genre I love (but often hate because of the style of writing and choice of plot points).