Strange Beasts by Susan J. Morris

Ooooh, that was a bit good, that was.

This was a book club read and if I’m being honest the premise didn’t particularly fill me with that much excitement. After all, the whole historical-fantasy-starring-relatives-of-literary-characters shtick has been around for a while now. But this one surprised me.

Samantha “Sam” Harker (daughter of Jonathan and Mina Harker) teams up with Dr. Helena “Hel” Moriarty (daughter of Professor James Moriarty) to track down a beast terrorising the citizens of Paris, but there’s more to the case than meets the eye, and soon the pair of them are scurrying around in the seedy underbelly of the city in search of a diabolical criminal mastermind.

This is a nicely written book, with some outstanding attention to detail – the author clearly has a genuine love of the setting, and that comes through in the writing. In addition, the character of Sam is very nicely developed, which is good given that she’s the primary POV character for the narrative. The other characters do stand out, though only Hel gets any real attention, but this in itself works quite well to show Sam’s growing affection for her.

In conclusion, if you’re looking for a decent historical horror romp through gothic Paris with a subtle underlying slow-burn wlw theme, then this could well be one for you.