4 stars
I love stories about human outsiders mingling in the world of the supernatural, and Strange Practice didn’t disappoint.
Synopsis from Goodreads:
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.
Strange Practice will appeal to fans of Seanan McGuire’s InCryptid series, as there are many similarities. Greta is human, but her clientele is not. She treats vampires, vampyres, (yes those are different kinds), mummies, ghouls, selkies and more. When Greta responds to a house call, she finds herself pulled into the schemes of a murderous sect of monks. Along the way she works with friends and makes some new ones as well.
It’s a fun, interesting story. Strange Practice is not as silly and lighthearted as McGuire’s InCryptid series but has the same kind of feel. Also, despite the feel of Strange Practice it is set in modern times, not the Victorian or Edwardian eras.
I enjoyed the book, but not at a 5-star level. I am looking forward to the sequel Dreadful Company, out later in 2018.
Alex Can Read 