Strange Practice

Today's post is on Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw. It is the first in her  Dr. Greta Helsing series. It is 320 pages long and is published Orbit books. The cover is grey and red with Helsing tending a vampire in a coffin. The intended reader is someone who likes urban fantasy and classic horror stories. There is mild foul language, no sex, and mild violence in this book. The story is told from third person close of the main characters moving from one to the next as the story needs. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- Meet Greta Helsing, fast-talking doctor to the undead. Keeping the supernatural community not-alive and well in London has been her family's specialty for generations.
Greta Helsing inherited the 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 barely making 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.

Review- A good start to an interesting urban fantasy story. Greta is an interesting heroine who is a doctor first and everything else second and I really like that. She does not head into danger when others are better suited to the task. She put her patients first and foremost, even when that made her feel like a coward. The world is very close to our world so getting the rules is very easy and understandable. Greta is human but all the characters are with some very classic vampires and other monsters. If you have any knowledge about folklore you will enjoy how true to the original stories about them Shaw sticks. The plot is very fast paced so you never have a chance to get bored because the plot keeps moving.  There is so much to enjoy about this novel if you are an urban fantasy fan, I look forward to the next one.

I give this book a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.