Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw
Length: 320 Pages
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal
Rating: 5 out of  Stars

"It was the adder that stung King Arthur's knight at Camlann, starting the last battle. It rode in the hearts and minds of those who set fire to the Library of Alexandria. When the Mongols took Baghdad in 1258 and the waters of the Tigris ran black with ink from ruined books and red with blood from ruined men, ninety thousand dead, it feasted."

When it comes to all sorts of fantasy, whether it be Urban Fantasy, High Fantasy, (I would even maybe throw in Paranormal Romance), I know exactly what I like, and exactly what I don't like. Maybe it comes with the territory, as fantasy tends to be my favorite genre to both read and write, and I can be very, very picky with it. So when I picked up the first book in the Greta Helsing series, and it was everything I wanted and more, I was ecstatic! During these days of COVID-19, Politics that threaten people's very lives, and, for me, spells of depression and OCD, Strange Practice is like a warm, beautiful light at the end of the tunnel. It was funny, thrilling, and heartwarming.

Greta Helsing has inherited the, strange indeed, family practice of being Doctor to London's array of fantastical creatures, from Vampires (and Vampyres, don't forget the Y!) to Weres to Ghouls and Banshees, and calls many of them friends, like Lord Ruthven, of John William Polidori's "The Vampyre" fame, and Fastitocalon, who has been a friend of the family for so long she worries it would be rude to ask him just what exactly he is. When Sir Francis Varney, he of the Victorian penny dreadful "Varney the Vampyre", shows up at Lord Ruthven's with a strange wound, Greta is called around to Ruthven's lush Thames Embankment home to check it out. The wound is puzzling, and Varney isn't healing normally, and even stranger, he claims to have been attacked by men dressed as monks, chanting about devils and evil. When Greta makes the connection between the monks, who have strangely glowing blue eyes, and the deaths plastered all over the news at the hands of the "Rosary Ripper", who has struck fear into the hearts of Londoners, they soon find themselves up against something as powerful and old as the universe itself.

I just adored the worldbuiling in this novel, and thought it was all such a refreshing take. I also loved how Shaw bucked a lot of the tropes of these sort of characters, like with Lord Ruthven, who is charming, fun, and social, as opposed to the more typical depressed and solitary Varney. The relationships between the characters is truly the heart of the story, and if you love tales of found family, paranormal characters told with a great sense of humor, and a dash of horror, I would highly recommend (to be honest, I'm recommending it to about everyone) Strange Practice!

Book Review: Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
Length: 343 Pages
Genres: Historical Fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

"Folks think a lifetime is a thing stretched out over years. It ain't. It can happen quick as a match in a dark room."

Trigger Warnings in this book for Racism and Statutory Rape

Simply put, this book made me want to quit writing. I was sitting there, lapping up every description, every simile, every word that Esi Edugyan put on the page, just in total awe over how someone can create a group of people, a story, that is so real. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I will not quit writing, despite knowing that this, at least to me, is it!

I think one of the most interesting things in the world is how one moment, one choice, can change the rest of someone's life irrevocably, and Half-Blood Blues is a excellent exploration of that. This is a tale told by a wonderfully unreliable narrator, Sidney "Sid" Griffiths, who in 1939 to 1940, jumped around from Berlin to Paris as a member of the Jazz band the Hot-Time Swingers. Among the players is his oldest friend and troublemaker, Chip Jones, and Hieronymus "Hiero" Falk, the youngest member who also happens to be a "Mischling" or "Rhineland Bastard": a child of a German mother and a father who was an African soldier. Hiero is only twenty but is already a musical genius on the trumpet, and the boys are overjoyed when they hear that Louis Armstrong is interested in them (especially Hiero) via the beautiful singer, Delilah Brown. Sid's love for Delilah, and overwhelming jealousy towards her relationship with Hiero, is the first step to sewing deep seeds of betrayal among them, all coming to a shocking end. An end that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

In 1992 Sid, in his eighties now, is living a boring life back in Baltimore. He gave up music, has been married thrice, and is loathe to dwell on the past. Unfortunately for him, the past comes roaring back to life when Chip shows up, claiming to have received a letter from the long assumed dead Hiero. Now he has to make amends with his past, whether he wants to or not.

Although I'm a huge fan of WWII stories, I have to agree with the majority of Historical Fiction readers when they say they're getting tired of them. It seems as if every story has been told again and again and again. But that's not the case with this book. Half-Blood Blues finally tells a story that seems to almost be forgotten, that of the "Rhineland Bastards", of the people of color swept up in the brutality of war who were just trying to flee the clutches of Jim Crow. It's utterly moving, refreshing, and, in my honest opinion, should have won the Booker Prize.