More often than not, having a family legacy just sucks. 

 

Samantha Harker and Dr. Helena Moriarty would know. It seems neither one can go hardly a day without someone commenting on how Sam reminds people of her mother and wondering if she inherited her mother’s channeling powers, and Helena is constantly under scrutiny and suspicion of being nothing more than her infinitely-mysterious criminal mastermind father’s pawn. Frankly, both are rather sick of it, even if neither of them knows it since they are barely passing acquaintances. 

 

There is a case in Paris, and the victims are all men. Using that fact as a positive, Sam puts in a bid to be assigned to the case as a field agent. There’s something about this case that’s telling her it’s tied to her grandfather’s disappearance ten years prior. The issue is that Dr. Moriarty has already been assigned the case and doesn’t work with a partner anymore; However, Sam has some tricks up her sleeve that help convince Helena to bring her along. All Sam has to do now is do her job and survive it. 

 

Strange Beasts is an extraordinarily good gaslamp fantasy-mystery with a paranormal edge and two LGBTQ main characters. Though being marketed as such, I personally wouldn’t call it a romantasy and it certainly isn’t gothic in nature or tone. (You can put all the Van Helsing and Harker and Moriarty in it you want, that doesn’t make a book gothic.) If anything, I’d almost consider this an urban fantasy, considering over 90% of the story takes place all over Paris. 

 

The fantasy-mystery main plot of this book is definitely the best part of this book, for you cannot disentangle the two without unraveling the whole book. It’s impeccably plotted, using continuous twists, turns, red herrings, injections of new information or disinformation, various other fallacies, and leaning on different characters' weaknesses to produce shifts in the story and in the characters’ behaviors and actions. This book will keep you guessing all the way to the end. 

 

The flaw I found in this book was that it felt slow for me. I felt like the pacing just didn’t match the energy the story warranted. I don’t know if it was just me and my penchant for faster-paced mysteries and thrillers or if others have had the same issue because I didn’t read reviews before starting. I just know I would’ve liked the story to have moved with a bit of a brisker pace. 

 

I was provided a copy of this title by the publisher and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. 

 

File Under: Fantasy/Historical Fantasy/LGBTQ Fantasy/Mystery/Paranormal Mystery