Dr. Greta Helsing Books in Order By Vivian Shaw
People are willing to overlook all kinds of eccentricities if you present them with enough money.
― Vivian Shaw, Strange Practice
- Strange Practice (2017)
- Dreadfull Company (2018)
- Grave Importance (2019)
What is Dr. Greta Helsing about?
Dr. Greta Helsing is set in an alternate contemporary London, where there are vampires, demons, mummies, ghouls and other odd and supernatural beings, who all try to live in secret alongside the normal humans. The titular and protagonist of the series, Greta Helsing, is a doctor, a human physician who specialises in monster medicine. While there is nothing supernatural about her (other than her name being inspired by Dracula himself…) we learn throughout the trilogy that this is more about who Greta is and her extensive family history.
Who is Vivian Shaw?
Vivian Shaw was born in Kenya and has lived in the UK and America since then. She has recently set up her own editorial site, where she works as a professional freelance editor and proofreader, you can check out that site here. Shaw has a BA in art history, an MFA in creative writing and publishing arts. Her latest book, The Helios Syndrome came out in April of 2023.
She currently lives in Santa Fe, with fellow author Arkady Martine, author of the Teixcalaan series and winner of two Hugo Awards.
No one should be that good at math, even if they are a fiend from Hell.
― Vivian Shaw, Dreadful Company
The Order
WARNING: There may be spoilers for some of the books mentioned. These are taken from the official descriptions but can sometimes spoil parts of previous books. So please be careful!
1. Strange Practice (2017) 
Dr. Greta Helsing #1
88,235 words, 353 pages, 5hrs 55mins to read.
Published by Orbit
3.85 out of 5 on Goodreads
Meet Greta Helsing, fast-talking doctor to the undead. Keeping the supernatural community not-alive and well in London has been her family’s specialty for generations.
Greta Helsing inherited the family’s highly specialized, and highly peculiar, medical practice. In her consulting rooms, Dr. Helsing treats the undead for a host of ills – vocal strain in banshees, arthritis in barrow-wights, and entropy in mummies. Although barely making ends meet, this is just the quiet, supernatural-adjacent life Greta’s been groomed for since childhood.
Until a sect of murderous monks emerges, killing human and undead Londoners alike. As terror takes hold of the city, Greta must use her unusual skills to stop the cult if she hopes to save her practice, and her life.
2. Dreadful Company (2018) 
Dr. Greta Helsing #2
99,735 words, 399 pages, 6hrs 40mins to read.
Published by Orbit
4.15 out of 5 on Goodreads
When Greta Helsing, doctor to the undead, is called to Paris to present at a medical conference, she expects nothing more exciting than professional discourse on zombie reconstructive surgery.
Unfortunately for Greta, Paris happens to be infested with a coven of vampires – and not the civilised kind. If she hopes to survive, Greta must navigate the maze of ancient catacombs beneath the streets, where there is more to find than simply dead men’s bones.
3. Grave Importance (2019) 
Dr. Greta Helsing #3
98,745 words, 395 pages, 6hrs 35mins to read.
Published by Orbit
4.14 out of 5 on Goodreads
Oasis Natrun: a private, exclusive, highly secret luxury health spa for mummies, high in the hills above Marseille, equipped with the very latest in therapeutic innovations both magical and medical. To Dr. Greta Helsing, London’s de facto mummy specialist, it sounds like paradise. But when Greta is invited to spend four months there as the interim clinical director, it isn’t long before she finds herself faced with a medical mystery that will take all her diagnostic skill to solve.
A peculiar complaint is spreading among her mummy patients, one she’s never seen before. With help from her friends and colleagues — including Dr. Faust (yes, that Dr. Faust), remedial psychopomps, a sleepy scribe-god, witches, demons, a British Museum curator, and the inimitable vampyre Sir Francis Varney — Greta must put a stop to this mysterious illness before anybody else crumbles to irreparable dust…
…and before the fabric of reality itself can undergo any more structural damage.
Don’t you think it seems a little… backward, perhaps…to run around committing mortal sins in order to cleanse the world of sin and evil?
― Vivian Shaw, Strange Practice
Overall
Dr. Greta Helsing is an interesting trilogy for sure! Not many times you get to read about a doctor for the undead. An added perk is that this trilogy is complete, so there’s no worry about getting started on something that you’re going to have to wait a while to get to the next part to see what happens next.
If you have enjoyed any of Vivian Shaw’s work and want to learn more about her or any other of her work, then feel free to check out her website. Don’t forget, if you like any of Martine’s work, then give her a follow on Twitter!
Which one is your favourite or most looking forward to picking up next?
Let us know!
Happy reading!
Dr. Greta Helsing Total Word Count and More!
- Total words: 286,715 words
- Total pages: 1,147 pages
- Total reading time: 19hrs 10mins
More of the same, but different:
For More of Anything:
Things to Note:
- Word count is an approximation.
- Amount of pages may differ due to different publications, font style and/or size etc.
- Time spent reading is generally an approximation based on the word count and the average reading time. The average reader will read 250 WPM (Words Per Minute).
- This is the original publisher of the books.
- The current Goodreads score at the time of writing.
- For more information on word lengths and what they mean, check out our handy guide here.
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