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Vivian Shaw is a Kenyan born British author of horror and contemporary fantasy.

She also writes fanfiction under the pseudonym Coldhope.

Best known for writing the Dr. Greta Helsing contemporary fantasy series, she holds a BA in art history, and an MFA in creative writing and publishing arts.

Passionate about writing, moreso about monsters, Vivian is also a professional freelance editor and proofreader.

She contributes reviews to the esteemed Washington Post, whereas her captivating short stories in the genres of science fiction and horror have appeared in publications such as Uncanny and Pseudopod.

Whenever she is free, Vivian enjoys collecting dreadful vintage cookbooks and fountain pens that are not as dreadful.

Vivian, who has previously lived in Cardiff, Oxford, and Baltimore, currently resides in Santa Fe with her wife, author Arkady Martine, who is a recipient of the prestigious Hugo and Locus Awards.

More about Vivian Shaw

Genres: Contemporary Fantasy, Horror

United Kingdom

Pseudonym: Also writes as Coldhope

Website: https://www.vivianshaw.net/

Dr. Greta Helsing

  1. Strange Practice (2017)
  2. Dreadful Company (2018)
  3. Grave Importance (2019)

Novellas

  1. The Helios Syndrome (2023)

Detailed book overview

Dr. Greta Helsing

Strange Practice

Dr. Greta Helsing, doctor to the undead, must defend London from both supernatural ailments and a bloodthirsty cult.

Greta Helsing inherited her 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 she barely makes 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.

Author: Vivian Shaw
First Release: 2017
ISBN: 978-0316434607
Publisher: Orbit
Dreadful Company

A witty, charming fantasy adventure starring Greta Helsing, doctor to the undead, whose family has been keeping the supernatural community not-alive and well for generations.

When Greta Helsing, doctor to the undead, is unexpectedly called to Paris to present at a medical conference, she expects nothing more exciting than professional discourse on zombie reconstructive surgery and skin disease in bogeymen―and hopefully at least one uneventful night at the Opera.

Unfortunately for Greta, Paris happens to be infested with a coven of vampires -- and not the civilized kind. If she hopes to survive, Greta must navigate the darkest corners of the City of Lights, the maze of ancient catacombs and mine-tunnels underneath the streets, where there is more to find than simply dead men's bones.

Author: Vivian Shaw
First Release: 2018
ISBN: 978-0316434638
Publisher: Orbit
Grave Importance

Greta Helsing, doctor to the undead, must solve a dangerous medical mystery at a secret French spa for mummies.

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 skills 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), 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.

Author: Vivian Shaw
First Release: 2019
ISBN: 978-0316434652
Publisher: Orbit

Novellas

The Helios Syndrome

When a plane goes missing in mysterious circumstances, Devin Stacy, a freelance necromancer-er, contingency communication specialist-finds the National Transportation Safety Board needs his special abilities. Using his unique arcane skill to touch base with a dead pilot, Captain White, Stacy must discover the truth about a horrifying flight gone awry, even under enormous pressure from the NTSB, as the missing plane blips on and off of their radar.

Author: Vivian Shaw
First Release: 2023
ISBN: 978-1590215371
Publisher: Lethe Press