Strange Familiars by Keshe Chos Series: Seamere College #1
Published by Penguin Group on May 19, 2026
Genres: Fiction / Romance / Fantasy, Fiction / Romance / New Adult
Pages: 432
Format: eBook
ISBN: 9780593956489
Two scholars of magical veterinary science must put aside their lust and loathing to save the world in the first installment of this whimsical, romantic, dark academia duology. All Gwendolynne Chan needs is to get through final year at Seamere College, where she is on track to graduate as number one —as long as the pretentious prat Harrisford Briggs doesn’t beat her to it. Harrisford Briggs’s father, the chief financial officer of Magecorp, a major global distributor of magic, expects him to come top of the class. Harrisford, though, can’t help but notice that his father has been acting odd. And there are strange whisperings, too, of uncontrollable surges of excess magic. When these magical surges begin to rock London, causing chaos and explosions and animal familiars going feral, Gwen and Harrisford find themselves reluctantly involved, putting both of their veterinary careers at risk. Along with Gwen’s snarky cat familiar, Gwen and Harrisford must team up to diagnose the problem. But as the two academic rivals fight their burgeoning feelings, they quickly realize that magic is the only thing surging.
This was definitely a fun novel! A light academia novel set in veterinary school with a rivals to lovers romance. The added bonus of magical creatures (both familiars and mythical) made it even better, although I do wish there were more discussion of them.
The entire plot revolves around Gwen and Harrisford (did anyone else want to say Harrison Ford? No..just me, well okay) trying to solve the mystery of all this extra magic that’s been causing explosions, burns, and animals to act out. The world-building of magic existing in modern day, but the magic system having the same flaws as our real world was fascinating. One corporation, Magecorp, running everything and only those who have money can utilize magic to it’s full extent. Yes, sounds familiar!
I was confused by Gwen and Harrisford’s rivalry to begin with. At Seamere College of Magical Veterinary Sciences, there are two streams for vets: magical familiars (mag.fam) and mythical creatures (myth.creat). That makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is why they have these two widely different streams compete for the top spot? It seems like there would be a top spot for mag.fam and one for myth.creat. This could be a common situation in vet school that I don’t know about, but it did seem really odd to me.
I did love both Gwen and Harrisford (I might actually just start typing Harrison Ford) as individual characters. I’m not sure how I feel about them as a couple. It felt so odd how one sentence they’d be all “oh he/she is so hot” then the next sentence is “oh they’re a bastard.” It was serious whiplash. Plus, the way neither of them actually critically think things through drove me crazy. Harrison Ford at times was so self-aware of his privilege but then would say something about Gwen being poor and coming from nothing. Then Gwen’s lack of understanding for why MageCorp is an evil corporation but she continually hurts herself to stretch her magic. Plus, her entire lack of compassion surrounding Harrison’s father. Yes, he’s a bastard, I’m not defending the man by any means. However, he’s still his father and Harrisford may need time to actually process everything. Plus, Harrison Ford did have to go and fill out paperwork at the hospital, so there was a more legitimate reason to be there.
Barring all of that, I still did enjoy the novel and do plan on reading the sequel, Monstrous Beasts.
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