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Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw
Jan. 9th, 2020 06:24 pm I just read the most delightful book called Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw. It follows Greta Helsing who's a physician for the undead in London. She's got a practice, and works for impoverished ghouls, displaced, decayed mummies and the vampires suffering depression from death-long ennui.
Its so wonderfully... mundane. Greta's no ancient slayer of the undead, just a physician with a particular specialty. She's friends with the undead and other supernatural which all have their own problems, and when one of them ends up harboring a vampire who by all accounts was stabbed by some lunatics in monk outfits, she finds that her friends and the city are under attack.
I can stop making up the book blurb for your purposes, its well worth a check out if you are interested in a wholly contemporary book that feels like its written in the style of the 1800s. I found myself struggling to remember that she's got a cellphone and a broken down old mini, but not in a bad way, just in that the style feels very old school.
The book is smart, and does some surprising and well crafted turns. I love a world that looks like one I could take the right (or perhaps wrong?) turn and end up in, with real characters doing the mundane things even among the fantastic. Its very much like my book in that marrying the reality and unreality.
I am already starting the sequel via audiobook.
Its definitely a more fun and creative story than that new Moffat Dracula show, which is very spineless in its trying to be edgy, and very mixed in tone and quality.
Its so wonderfully... mundane. Greta's no ancient slayer of the undead, just a physician with a particular specialty. She's friends with the undead and other supernatural which all have their own problems, and when one of them ends up harboring a vampire who by all accounts was stabbed by some lunatics in monk outfits, she finds that her friends and the city are under attack.
I can stop making up the book blurb for your purposes, its well worth a check out if you are interested in a wholly contemporary book that feels like its written in the style of the 1800s. I found myself struggling to remember that she's got a cellphone and a broken down old mini, but not in a bad way, just in that the style feels very old school.
The book is smart, and does some surprising and well crafted turns. I love a world that looks like one I could take the right (or perhaps wrong?) turn and end up in, with real characters doing the mundane things even among the fantastic. Its very much like my book in that marrying the reality and unreality.
I am already starting the sequel via audiobook.
Its definitely a more fun and creative story than that new Moffat Dracula show, which is very spineless in its trying to be edgy, and very mixed in tone and quality.
