If you’re looking for a quick supernatural read, I suggest checking out this book. What initially drew me to this book was the cover. It looks awesome and then after reading the synopsis, I knew it would be something up my alley. I really enjoyed the author’s take on certain creatures, especially vampires and vampyres, which are actually different from one another in this book. I loved the concept of a human doctor, a Helsing no less, that specifically treats supernatural creatures including vampires, ghouls, and the like. Normally when I think of the name Helsing, I think more of vampire slayers rather than healers. I liked the main characters of the book and the story was definitely interesting, however as I was reading, I felt more as if I was just observing the scenes rather than engrossed in them. I didn’t feel very connected to the characters so while I know that there were scary parts that should have made me really nervous like I normally do but they just didn’t seem to phase me. Overall, I did enjoy reading this book and I will be looking forward to reading the sequel.

A funny urban fantasy about a physician to
London’s alternately alive. Someone, or something, is on a murderous rampage through the city’s human and non-human citizenry. It falls to Greta Helsing to work out what’s going on. Her efforts are aided by two vampires, a historian, a clan of ghouls and… so on. By turns funny and terrifying, what makes this new novel so good is the humanity at its heart.

This was an enjoyable book. I thought the worldbuilding was fascinating. I loved meeting all the different paranormal beings Greta treats through her practice. Her friends and mentors, vampire Ruthven and demon (??) Fastitocalon were among my favorites. All together, I think Greta and her mystery-solving cohort had a great found family meets Scooby gang dynamic from right off, and I loved it. A television show of these characters would instantly become my favorite (think SyFy's Sanctuary or even the classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer). The book was enjoyable and a reasonably easy read despite the proliferation of varied technical jargon.

I had two problems with this story, however. The mystery didn't match what was promised in the blurb. I feel like I was supposed to get a paranormal mystery/thriller and this story fulfills the paranormal mystery end, but I didn't get the thrill. Up until the very end, I never really felt like anybody was at risk. I also never really bought the danger of the antagonists. This may just be my off-kilter creep-meter, but this felt like it verged on a slightly gorier than average cozy mystery with ghouls thrown in.

My second issue was with Greta. Greta is a perfectly serviceable main character for a contemporary novel, but she doesn't stand up very well beside these much worldlier paranormal types. Putting aside the very troublesome fact that she was the only female primary character, Greta just isn't very well-developed compared to the others. Yes, in a way she's up against characters that somewhat established in pop cultures, and thus have a shorter distance to go in gaining reader investment; but to me, that means <i>more</i> effort and page time should have gone into fleshing her out. The only thing I feel like I know about her is she gets into trouble that's avoidable, has daddy issues, and is very attached to her late father's friends (who I like so I don't mind). This series is supposed to be <i>her</i> series, going by the name, so it should be about <i>her</i>. This was not the case in Strange Practice and that disappointed me.

A small gripe about the romance-in-progress. It didn't work for me. I've done the self-hating vamp who falls for the astonishingly average human girl deal and I'm pretty over it.

As for overall diversity, the story takes another drubbing for being a bunch of dudes and one woman (I barely count the two tertiary women who work with Greta because they're barely physically present during the bulk of the narrative) and for the fact that there only seems to be one non-white passing character to be seen--not to mention, the fact that everyone appears to be non-LGBTQ+. No, the book never advertised itself as diverse, but that's still something I look for in my reads and Strange Practice did poorly with me on that score.

Overall, a good, easy read. It could have been more suspenseful, the mystery more interesting, and the main character more thoroughly fleshed out in the debut of her eponymous series, but as paranormal reads go, it was very enjoyable. If you enjoy found family tales and paranormal creatures, I'd recommend giving Strange Practice a gander.

My thanks to NetGalley, Orbit Books, and Vivian Shaw for permitting me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Dr. Greta Helsing has a very strange medical practice. She treats many of the supernatural creatures of London. Ghouls, vampires, mummies, and the like all come to her for assistance. So when she got a call from Ruthven about a patient, she made a house call. Varney had been attacked by strange monks with very strange daggers coated with a cocktail of poisons that specifically affected supernaturals. An then Greta was attacked. More of her acquaintances were in danger or coming to her aid. But when they met up with Greta's attacker the second time, he was in need of assistance, so she helped him. By a bit of thralling, they finally learned where the mad monks were located and mounted an expedition to confront them. If not for the unexpected aid of the ghouls and Samael, one of the rulers of Hell, things would have gone badly. But in the end, the heroes of the tale instead got a vacation in Greece in the off-season. An interesting first volume. Time will tell if Greta continues to enjoy her adventures.

A wonderfully diverse cast of characters makes this book shine. Shaw has a knack for adapting existing monsters and creatures into fun, fresh characters that immerse the reader in this story of the hidden inhabitants of London. I am looking forward to the next book in this series and the new creatures and characters it introduces.

A fun and quick light read.
Funny at times, a lot of tea drinking, vampires, and good vs evil setup make this for one interesting story line. I will say though, this came off as more of a comedic story than a horror/paranormal one. However, seems perfect for the changing weather and Halloween coming up. The plot was well paced and well defined characters-loved it!
Certainly intrigued to see where the next book takes us. (Side note: in the physical copy there is an excerpt from Bad Company, her next book in the series.)



I received a copy of this book through Netgalley for an honest opinion. I would like to thank Vivian Shaw and Orbit Books for the opportunity to read and review this wonderful book.

I've been wanting to get my hands on this book for a long time and the wait is finally over. This book was crazy good. I loved the whole Van Helsing concept and how it was played out. Greta is a paranormal doctor who is thrown into a strange mystery when a murderous monk shows up. How can you go wrong with that? I could have used a little more world building, but that's just me.

Four stars for Strange Practice!

Refreshingly different view of supernatural characters presented with humor and suspense. Dr Greta Helsing is most definitively an usual doctor with a STRANGE PRACTICE. Looking forward to more of the series.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

Strange Practice
by Vivian Shaw
Orbit Books
Sci Fi & Fantasy
Pub Date 25 Jul 2017
Courtesy Netgalley

I enjoyed Strange Practice immensely. I hope it is the beginning of a series. Greta Helsing (the family dropped the Van between the World Wars) is a physician, just like her late father. Just like her father and grandfather, Greta is the rare doctor in modern London who makes house calls in addition to running a clinic on Harley Street, the address synonymous for the best in health care in London. Greta’s practice treats the most underserved and needy of all London inhabitants, the unalive.

In Greta’s clinic she deals with Mummies who have chronic pain from bone deterioration, ghouls with depression, and anything else that finds it’s way to her. She is trusted and well liked by all the supernaturals. She is also overworked and clinging to her budget by her fingernails. But like her father and grandfather, this is the life she feels she is called to. She likes and respects her patients.

When Greta gets a call in the middle of the night to go to Lord Ruthven’s house. Greta has known Ruthven all her life and has known he is a vampire. When she arrives she find Varney, who is a vampyre, wounded by a poison weapon. She is fascinated as she has never had the opportunity to observe this cousin species of the more common vampire. Greta and Ruthven discover that Varney has been hit with a very strange metal stake, poisoned specifically to kill the unalive.

The story quickly takes off from there involving demons, ghouls, and humans. Ms. Shaw created a tantalizing world that I would love to see explored more. All the different varieties of unalive were fascinating. Werewolves were mentioned but not featured in this book. The writing was excellent, wonderful descriptions of the locations, monsters and humans. The story was great. It kept me turning pages long after I should have gone to sleep. Treat yourself to vampires grocery shopping and making lattes and a woman doctor who heals as well as kicks ass to protect her patients.

It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to doctor the monsters of London. If it weren’t for Greta Helsing, who would replace bones for the mummies, treat the ghoul children’s ear infections, or help treat the vampires’ depression? In Strange Practice, by Vivian Shaw, is the first novel in a new series featuring the good doctor. Not only does the good doctor have to care for her patients in this novel, but she also has to contend with a new supernatural threat. It’s good thing she’s not alone. Greta has the help of two vampires, one demon, and very goofy librarian*.

The novel opens with Greta receiving a call from her good friend, Lord Edmund Ruthven (vampire), to come and care for another vampire, Sir Francis Varney, who has just arrived at Ruthven’s house in terrible condition. Little does Greta know but that this is just the beginning of a terrifying campaign against a band of rogue warrior monks. They don’t know this right away, of course. At first, Varney can only recall vague details about robes and strange chanting about sins and uncleanliness. Ruthven calls in a friend, August Cranswell (the goofy librarian) at the British Library to do some scholarly digging. Meanwhile, Greta’s family friend, the demon Fastitocalon, uses his infernal powers to sniff out the warrior monks.

The usual practice in a contemporary fantasy thriller-mystery is for the protagonist (almost always female) to take the lead, to dive into dangerous spots with guns blazing, and sort everything out. While I enjoy a good kick-ass heroine, it was refreshing to see Greta et al. take a more team-based approach. Greta is more than willing to lean on her friends to stop the killings, given their “special talents.” She even volunteers to stay behind if necessary to tend to the wounded. The team-based approach also means that we don’t have the carrying-the-world-on-her-shoulders-like-Buffy trope (which I think gets old fast). But it would be wrong not to consider Greta a hero. When Varney asks her why she does what she does, she responds that it’s because she has to do what is right. She fights, but she fights intelligently.

Strange Practice is a fun, fast read and a different take on the genre. I loved all of the characters since they were so different from what I normally see in the genre. (Sure, there’s brooding, but that doesn’t last.) The review copy I read had the first chapter of the next book in the series, Bad Company, and I’ve already decided that I must read it as soon as it comes out.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley for review consideration.

I throughly loved the first book in this series and have already marked my calendar for the next release! It was fast paced and a fun read. It has been a long time since I picked up a book that I enjoyed this much! There was a lot of humor and I love the world that Vivian Shaw has created. There are a lot of different creatures and I can't wait to see if there are more in the next two books. You can feel the dampness of a winter London and appreciate the care that Dr Greta has for her patients. All in all a book I did not put down until I finished.

If you were ever one of those people that rooted for the monster in a horror movie, this is a book for you. "Strange Practice" by Vivian Shaw is just that. It is about Greta Helsing, M.D. (aka Van Helsing). Instead of chasing monsters and destroying them, Greta's calling is something different. Greta is a doctor but not just in the ordinary sense of the word. Her patients are the undesirables: ghouls, sanguivores, weres, mummies and a number of other beasties. This in itself was intriguing enough for me to want to read this novel. We are introduced to two very different types of vampires or is it vampyre? Anyway, Greta and her patient/friends are trying to solve who is perpetrating heinous acts of violence against her clients. There seems to be a connection to a series of high profile "ripper" murders in London as well. There is action galore. We have knife wielding monks with glowing blue eyes, demons and even an appearance by an angel. I don't want to spoil it any more than that. I did feel like I wanted more at the end but that is what subsequent novels are for. I look forward to the further adventures of Dr. Greta Helsing and company.

A fluffy bit of urban fantasy. Greta Helsing is a doctor for the supernatural beings living London because as it turns out even they have some mundane problems like infections and broken bones. Featuring heavily in the novel are some of the lesser known vampires from classic gothic novels, like Varney the Vampyre. While some other reviews call it a mystery, it lacks any real sense of mystery to the reader, giving away the villain and its motivations long before it is known (or even before there's enough hints to guess at it) to the characters.

Definitely a light palate-cleansing read, and I'm likely to read the next one in the series when I need something similarly unchallenging to read.

Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw features Dr. Greta Helsing, a descendent of monster hunters. Instead of hunting monsters she now practices medicine for monsters. The nature of her practice, based in modern-day London, must remain secret so her patients can remain safe. That balance is threatened when a group of monks starts targeting supernatural creatures, as well as the good doctor herself. It's up to Greta and her friends to stop the group before London falls to its knees.

This was an unexpectedly fun book. I don't generally read urban fantasy--high fantasy is much more my jam, so I didn't know if I would like this or not. While the plot itself is pretty standard and offers very few twists, I found myself engaged by the characters, who take turns telling the story from their point of view. Greta wants to help her patients and cares deeply about her friends, which makes her an endearing protagonist. I really enjoyed Ruthven, a vampire whose affliction is not melancholy, but ennui. In contrast we have Varmy, who I also quite liked, a vampyre (there is a difference) who would seem very at home on a storm-tossed moor. Cranswell, a museum curator, offers a human perspective and some humor. My favorite, however, was the demon Fastitocalon, who seems to have a very intriguing backstory, as anyone who is on a first-name basis with the devil would.

There are areas where the story dragged, particularly where the author repeated information or excessively used exposition to explain a reasonable decision by Greta. I was also curious as to how Greta was able to use human medicine in her non-human patients. This didn't spoil my enjoyment too much, as I was so invested in the characters.

All in all, this was a fun start to what looks to be an enjoyable series.

Thank you to Orbit Books and NetGalley for providing an advance reading copy.

This review also appears on GoodReads.

Strange Practice is a novel filled with monsters – to quote the book, “in its descriptive, rather than pejorative, sense”. This means that on the streets of present-day London lurk ”vampires, were-creatures, mummies, banshees, ghouls, bogey-men… (and)… the occasional barrow-wight.”

Protecting these peculiar creatures from all things good and fair (though, in reality, they are much nastier and more horrible than the beings already mentioned) is Dr. Greta Helsing, daughter of famous physician Wilfert Helsing, now deceased. Running around modern-day London from her Harley Street offices in her battered Mini, she holds down a regular practice but also looks after those creatures of the night that need specialist care and attention – and most importantly, discretion. If you are a banshee with vocal strain or a barrow-wight with arthritis, the quiet word on the street is that Greta’s the woman to take care of you.

Clearly there are different approaches to such a scenario. One could create creatures so frightening that the mere thought of their activities are going to keep you awake at night. Vivian’s take on the idea is different – that they are generally beings to be treated with respect and even pity. They are often creatures who, instead of creating fear, live in fear themselves – of being discovered, of being hated, of being killed.

Within this we are introduced to a range of likeable and memorable monsters. There’s Ruthven, the centuries-old sophisticated vampire living in the rich quarters of London who, when bored – and being undead, he does have a lot of time on his hands – will take up a new hobby, like reconditioning vintage cars or being able to produce the best coffee. There’s also Fastitocalon (Fass), a demon with self-preservation issues suffering from a long-standing bout of bronchitis, and a family friend of the Helsings for many years.

When Sir Francis Varney the Vampyre (yes, that one of Rymer’s tale, though Rymer’s lengthy Victorian ‘penny-dreadful’ story was evidently generously over-exaggerated and shares little more with Varney than his name) staggers into Ruthven’s house one evening, Greta is asked to make a house call. She discovers Varney very ill, having being stabbed with a tainted cross-shaped dagger belonging to a mysterious sect of murderous monks, the Gladius Sancti.

Greta soon finds herself at risk for consorting with the undead. For the monks have a bigger purpose and serve a master whose appearance threatens all and puts London at risk.

It’s not easy to gain a reader’s sympathy for things that elsewhere are traditionally creatures of hate and fear. This one, by virtue of its deceptively accessible prose and slightly amused tone, quickly sucked me in. It is an extremely promising debut novel. For a book filled with creatures who ironically want to suck your blood, by the end it is a radiantly positive, life-affirming tale that won me over surprisingly quickly and with effortless prose that simply engages the reader from the start. This is one enjoyed for the lightness of touch and the brilliantly droll characterisation that suffuses a fairly standard plot. There’s suspense, some gruesome torture and a few nail-biting, page-turning incidents that show that Vivian’s got something right. I particularly liked her take on ‘infernocelestial politics’ – the relationship between Heaven and Hell that’s more complicated than most people think.

But most of all, and perhaps surprisingly for a book filled with monsters, Strange Practice has a lot of heart. The characters clearly care for each other and their mutual investment in each other’s well-being leads to a book where you want to see that all is well. Vivian is to be commended for writing an entertaining book with characters that the reader will love – even the undead!

A great read – I look forward to more in the same world. The extract of Book Two at the end of this one suggests that I will want to read more, and soon.

An interesting take on a popular genre; mummies and vampires etc..etc.. It was funny and creative and I enjoyed myself reading it. There were some plot issues, but mainly it got a little too campy let's throw everything in for me.

Vivian Shaw is a welcome and refreshing addition to the paranormal genre. Strange Practice was truly original and captivating.

For nigh on half a century, my grandfather was a what we would call a family practice doctor in a small town in the Midwest. He had a million stories of his long practice, everything from the reclusive survivor of the Titanic disaster who came in once a year from New England, to the time he diagnosed malaria at 10 paces in Duluth because he’d seen so much of it in the War. (“I feel terrible, Doc,” the man said. “You have malaria,” said my grandfather. The patient told that story forever: How did a doctor thousands of miles from endemic malaria do that?) My grandfather’s medical practice was bound indelibly with the community he served; sick and well, his trade was helping people. The main character of Strange Practice, the debut novel by Vivian Shaw, reminds me of my grandfather in the very best way.

Admittedly, there are a lot of differences, so let’s get those out of the way first: Dr Greta Helsing is in her mid-30s and lives in London, where she has recently inherited her father’s medical practice. Dr. Helsing, like her father before her, ministers to the ghouls and vampires and mummies of the capital city and beyond. (As far as I’m aware, Grandpa only ministered to humans.) Secrecy is maybe just as important as medicine for many of her patients, and Greta goes well out of her way to make sure the supernatural denizens of her practice are given the best care she can manage. There’s never enough money, and sometimes her patients are more obstreperous than she’d prefer, but she genuinely loves her work.

The action starts with a house call. She visits Edmund Ruthven, one of London’s oldest vampires, because Sir Francis Varney, another aged vampyre (the y denotes certain morphological differences), arrived on Ruthven’s doorstep after being viciously attacked by men dressed as monks. Though most vampires (and vampyres) tend to heal quickly, Varney’s cross-shaped puncture wound is festering, and he’s running the vampire equivalent of a fever. Helsing works through the night, plied with expertly made coffee and strangely perfect surgical expertise by Ruthven, and manages to stabilize the vampyre.


If any of those names sound familiar, it’s because they should. One of the more charming aspects of Strange Practice is the way Shaw wends in characters from penny dreadfuls and Gothic novels, but updates them for the modern day. Sir Varney is the main character of a mid-19th C penny dreadful called Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood. (How I adore Victorian titling.) A somewhat soapy tale in the vein of Dark Shadows, Varney the Vampire influenced Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Speaking of Dracula, Greta Helsing’s family dropped the Van in Van Helsing, the surname of the vampire hunter in that work, after they traded from antagonism toward the supernatural for understanding. Edmund Ruthven is the vampire protagonist of The Vampyre, written by John Polidori, though often attributed to Lord Byron. Both The Vampyre and Mary Shelley’s seminal Gothic novel Frankenstein come out of the same fireplace literary dare, one attended by some of the foremost writers of the day. Sometimes this kind of allusiveness can be annoying, butShaw does a wonderful job tipping the hat to her literary forebears without sweating the details overmuch.

In the morning, after Varney is stabilized, Greta heads back to her practice, and Ruthven works a source in the British museum. They’re all suspicious the attack on Varney is related to a series of killings attributed to “The Rosary Ripper,” a serial killer who has put London on edge, murdering women and stuffing cheap plastic rosaries into their mouths. Greta ministers to ghouls and mummies; Varney recuperates; Ruthven works his considerable contacts. Like any great detective yarn (much of medicine is detective work), Greta’s efforts to minister to her patients dovetails into larger, more dastardly plots, ranging both above and below the city and through a considerable amount of history.

This book is a joy to read, unlocking every bit of delicious promise in the premise. It’s peopled with fun and interesting characters. I certainly want to know much more about Fastitocalon, a good friend of Greta’s father who views her protection as a familial duty, and is also of unknown supernatural stock. The way the novel uses its London setting is a credit to that fine city. But the thing I find so compelling about Strange Practice is the fundamental decency of its main character: Dr. Greta Helsing practices a formidable sort of kindness, looking on her secret and sometimes monstrous community, and doing everything in her power to ease their ills. Medicine is a practice, and she’s working towards its performance of good every day.

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"His mind felt full of shattered ice and quicksand, all sharp edges and dull helpless sliding at once, poisoned with blue, drunk with it."
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This was a cool find, and not quite what I expected.

Dr. Greta Helsing (the family dropped the "van") is in the family business. She serves as the go-to medical practitioner for the Things That Go Bump In The Night - she takes care of them and they, in turn, as we learn as the story develops, more than take care of her in return... When a new, unidentified, source starts attacking London's TTGBITN, Dr. Helsing quickly steps in, hunting the hunters who are hunting her and her friends... Sound confusing? It's really not - and the story development and cast of characters are more than original enough to keep you entertained, curious, and in suspense throughout the book.

Both Greta and her "monsters" are more human than you might expect in a book about supernatural characters. Their foibles and quirks are endearing and make them eminently relatable. From the blurb and the opening pages, I rather expected Greta to be much more stiff-upper-lipped than she turned out to be. I was pleased to be surprised in this regard; I often think that protagonists are a little too perfectly prepared for what comes their way in supernatural stories - or at least too perfectly, unflappably, adaptable. Real life is messy and off-kilter and throws even the most stoic for a loop now and then - it was a refreshing delight to see protagonists be similarly situated, especially because they persevered nevertheless. It made the story more interesting and the characters much more believable.

Add on to that a delightful story-telling style and original voice, and you have a recipe for success in my book! There were teasers in the text suggesting more adventures for the indomitable Dr. Greta, and a preview of the next installment was provided - I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what she and her fascinating team of compatriots stumble up against next...

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"Is it really over, do you think?"
Ruthven looked bleak for a moment, and then his smile came back, wry now, a little crooked. "No. It's never going to be *really* over; as long as we exist, there will be people determined to try to remedy that condition. But this part of it is done with."
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