Vivian Shaw wears way too many earrings and likes edged weapons and expensive ink. She was born in Kenya and has lived in Cardiff, Oxford, and Baltimore. She has a BA in art history, an MFA in creative writing and publishing arts, and currently works as a professional freelance editor and proofreader. She writes about monsters, both in and out of classic horror literature; machines, extant and fantastical; disasters and their causes; and found family. She is the author of the Dr. Greta Helsing contemporary fantasy trilogy, Strange Practice, Dreadful Company, and Grave Importance. Her short fiction/horror fiction has appeared in Uncanny and Pseudopod.
"Strange Practice is written with elegance, wit, and compassion.
The prose is gorgeous, the wit is mordant, and the ideas are
provocative. Also, there are ghouls."--p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px
0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Calibri; -webkit-text-stroke:
#000000}span.s1 {font-kerning: none}Laura Amy Schlitz, Newbery
Medal winner, on Strange Practice
"A playfully witty confection spun from the setting of The Phantom
of the Opera, sardonic yet a touch sweet, in which the elegant
vampires of Helsing's social set come up against an undisciplined
coven of sparkly, eyeliner-loving youngsters.... Moves smoothly
between the ongoing stories of her returning characters and the
immediate plot, and between pop culture references and innovation,
framing London's supernatural residents as delightfully normative
while still capably evoking the frisson of the
uncanny."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Dreadful
Company
"Strange Practice surprises and delights. It's completely different
from anything I've read before. It ticks so many boxes: action,
mystery, suspense, an exciting and different world adjacent to our
own to name but a few. But the greatest elements of the book are
the characters. They shine."--The Bookbag on Strange Practice
"A book to settle into. A warm quilt of a thing that's made for
curling up with ... I miss this newest Helsing already."--NPR on
Strange Practice
"A darkly delicious adventure featuring a quirky new heroine.
Strange Practice breathes new life into the undead."--James
Bennett, author of Chasing Embers, on Strange Practice
"A grand romp, mixing plenty of humor (even Oscar Wilde chimes in)
and some heartwarming moments amid the chills."--Locus on Dreadful
Company
"A satisfying and surprising read, with rich imagery, nuance, and
real compassion for its characters--give Strange Practice a
shot!"--Elliott James, author of Charming, on Strange Practice
"An absolute delight to read ... this is a remarkably well-realized
world and cast of characters; it really isn't very long before you
find yourself not only enjoying the story but the world demi-monde
Greta moves in, a world where you can take the regular London Bus
or Underground but which also has ghouls in the sewers, or Lord
Ruthven in his Embankment House grand home."--Forbidden Planet on
Strange Practice
"An appropriately dark breath of fresh air."--Booklist on Strange
Practice
"An exceptional and delightful debut, in the tradition of Good
Omens and A Night in the Lonesome October."--Elizabeth Bear,
Hugo-award winning author, on Strange Practice
"Enchanted me from the very first page ... I just couldn't put it
down. When I say that there is nothing like this book out there, I
mean it, and that's a damn good thing."--Book Worm Blues on Strange
Practice
"Fast-moving, funny, and irresistibly fun."--B&N Sci-Fi &
Fantasy Blog on Dreadful Company
"For a book filled with creatures who ironically want to suck your
blood, by the end it is a radiantly positive, life-affirming tale
that won me over surprisingly quickly and with effortless prose
that simply engages the reader from the start ... But most of all,
and perhaps surprisingly for a book filled with monsters, Strange
Practice has a lot of heart. The characters clearly care for each
other and their mutual investment in each other's well-being leads
to a book where you want to see that all is well. Vivian is to be
commended for writing an entertaining book with characters that the
reader will love -- even the undead!"--SFFWorld on Strange
Practice
"I absolutely loved it.... Dreadful Company is a
triumph."--SFFWorld
"In Vivian Shaw's Strange Practice, a charmingly unusual doctor and
her charges keep the city of London from grave danger. In the
process, they peel back the covers of familiar (and according to
them, somewhat "libelous") stories to find that reality -
especially with the undead - is more poignant and complex than it
seems at first glance. An excellent adventure."--p.p1 {margin:
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#000000}span.s1 {font-kerning: none}Fran Wilde, award-winning
author of Updraft, Cloudbound, and Horizon, on Strange Practice
"Occasionally I can pick up a book, start to read and know within a
couple of pages that I am going to be absolutely hooked. Strange
Practice is a splendid case in point. Vampires, demons, ghouls,
supernatural cults and all manner of inexplicable jiggery-pokery.
What's not to love? I can only hope Vivian Shaw writes many more
Greta Helming novels ... I can tell you now that if she does write
more I'll be first in line to read them."--The Eloquent Page on
Strange Practice
"Readers will look forward to more of Greta's adventures. An
imaginative, delightfully droll debut."--Kirkus on Strange
Practice
"Shaw balances an agile mystery with a pitch-perfect, droll
narrative and cast of lovable misfit characters. These are not your
mother's Dracula or demons ... Strange Practice is a super(natural)
read."--Shelf Awareness on Strange Practice
"Shaw's elegant writing make this series a standout in the
genre."--Booklist on Dreadful Company
"There are as few heroines as well written and compelling as Greta
Helsing."--BookPage on Dreadful Company
"This book is a joy to read, unlocking every bit of delicious
promise in the premise."--B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog on Strange
Practice
"What a splendid adventure this is - Dr. Greta Helming is a
brilliant character, world-weary doctor on-call at all hours,
sorting out the ills of the undead and trying to run her Harley
Street practice without drawing too much (or any) attention to her
patients from the living world ... a splendid new urban fantasy
series."--Espressococo on Strange Practice
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