Strange Beasts is so much fun that the minute I finished the book, I downloaded the audio for my husband to listen to. This is a paranormal adventure meets gothic mystery with a sapphic love story intertwined in all of that. It has shades of Penny Dreadful, non stop action, and it’s just a blast to read.
The novel takes place in an alternate Victorian era where paranormal creatures openly exist with human beings. Sam Harker (daughter of Mina and Jonathan Harker from Dracula) is a researcher for The Royal Society for the Study of Abnormal Phenomena. Sam is also a channel: she has psychic abilities that allow her to see into the past when she touches certain items–but she must keep this a secret. Mina was a channel, too, and it allowed Dracula to enter her mind, and since then it’s become an ability associated with women being mentally weak and controllable. Sam is worried if someone finds out about her, she’ll wind up in an asylum.
Sam has been trying to get out of the library and into field work, and she manages to snag a case with Helena Moriarty (daughter of Dr Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes series). A beast has been killing wealthy, privileged men in Paris and The Society is supposed to figure out why. The Society also wants Sam to spy on Hel. Her last three partners died while working cases with her and The Society, and while she’s estranged from her father, she’s treated with suspicion due to their familial connection. Hel also dresses in a masculine fashion and does what she wants, and The Society is pretty patriarchal, so that has something to do with there suspicions, too.
I really loved the characters in this book: they were familiar due to their relation to other works, but also completely their own. Hel is determined to someday outfox her father, and Sam is determined to prove that she’s not the fragile creature her family believes she is. As they get closer to each other during the case, there’s a frisson of romantic tension between them that’s delightful.
I also liked that while the book had almost non-stop, un-put-downable action, it also has a terrific mystery. The paranormal aspect was also just tremendously fun with creatures like grindlows and carcolhs populating the world. I had to stop periodically to look things up because I’d never heard of them before.
What makes Strange Beasts so excellent is that it takes three different genres (romance, Gothic mystery, paranormal action-adventure) and blends them together perfectly. The disparate elements in this novel gel together in a way that enhances each other, rather than feeling discordant.
The end of Strange Beasts leaves room for a sequel and boy howdy, do I hope that comes to fruition. This was easily my favorite book so far this year.