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:
I can see that this series has many different reviews, but for me it really worked. Probably because a friend whose tastes run super close to mine recommended it.
This is an urban fantasy. The beings that live in this world are not new to me – Vampires, ghouls, werewolves, mummies, banshees but off the top of my head I do not recall reading a book where the doctor who treats supernatural beings was a main character. Of course Greta’s Helsing last name was amusing to me and will be to anyone who has the slightest familiarity with the classics of supernatural lore. I giggled that her family dropped “Van” from their family name when they moved to England :-).
Greta’s father was a doctor for the supernatural community and she wanted to practice medicine, too, so she took over when she was ready and when her father died. I really did like Greta, I liked her no-nonsense take charge attitude and her outlook on life was believable to me considering her profession. I liked that she remembered the she swore to save lives when possible even if sometimes the people she tried to save were not very nice?
I also asked myself a question about whether Greta sounded like a Mary Sue like character and my answer is no. Yes, she helps a lot of beings and they like and respect her for that, but not everyone falls at her feet and she is not described as mind bogglingly beautiful, you get the drift.
Actually, I have to note that all the other main characters sounded like a real people to me, despite some of them not being human and sounding not quite like contemporary English sounds for completely understandable reasons. I also thought it was amusing that two of the other main characters have the real Wikipedia pages about them ;-).
The driving force behind the events in this book is that someone or somebody has started attacking the supernatural community and Greta has to treat someone who was hurt as a result and eventually she and her friends/ patients are very involved in trying to stop this threat. I will let you find out if they were able to do so.
The original series was a trilogy, however the first book ends in a quite self contained way. You can just see that some of the interpersonal storylines have the place for the continuation and growth :). Apparently original trilogy was written in 2017 and this year author published another novella in this world.
Grade: B+
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Sirius
Sirius started reading books when she was four and reading and discussing books is still her favorite hobby. One of her very favorite gay romances is Tamara Allen’s Whistling in the Dark. In fact, she loves every book written by Tamara Allen. Amongst her other favorite romance writers are Ginn Hale, Nicole Kimberling, Josephine Myles, Taylor V. Donovan and many others. Sirius’ other favorite genres are scifi, mystery and Russian classics. Sirius also loves travelling, watching movies and long slow walks.
