Today’s review is about STRANGE FAMILIARS by Keshe Chow. It’s the first book in The Seamere College Duology. It’s set in a magical veterinary school setting with two characters competing for top of their class. However, magical surges and explosions cause these two academic rivals to team up and investigate the source of the disturbance.
Author: Keshe Chow
Series: The Seamere College Duology, #1
Age Category: Adult
Publisher: Ace
Publish Date: May 19, 2026
Print Length: 432
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Strange Familiars Synopsis
Synopsis
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 not the only thing surging.
Strange Familiars Book Review
I received a free, digital, advanced reading copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. My review is my own and reflects my honest opinion about this book.
In STRANGE FAMILIARS, two magical veterinary science students are at the top of their class. Each of them hopes to make Dux so they can get an esteemed job at the Ministry. Gwendolynne Chan works and studies exceptionally hard to make top brass due to an emotional stake. She grew up poor in an immigrant family and needs a high-paying job whose salary she intends to use to save her parents’ Chinese food restaurant. Harrisford Briggs comes from a rich family whose father helps run Magecorp, a company who distributes magic. Harrisford wants to win Dux to get out from under his father’s control. Gwen and Harrisford are academic rivals, but magical surges, explosions, and blackmail force them together to discover the source of the chaos.
STRANGE FAMILIARS did not disappoint with a good time. Despite being over 400 pages, I binge read this book. The narrative style is incredibly easy to sink into, helped by the two distinctive points of view of Gwen and Harrisford. Chow’s characterization of them is perhaps a bit on the nose, rather than letting the reader come to the same conclusions after processing events and interactions. But that didn’t detract too much from the story and probably makes these characters more approachable and relatable.
Gwen is really worried about her parents losing their Chinese restaurant, which they started from scratch decades prior. She feels the perceived expectation or burden to graduate at the top of her class in order to save the restaurant and try to repay her parents for helping fund her degree. But because Gwen is poor, she has to ration her purchased magic whereas most of her peers can just buy more magic when they need it. This is a handicap in her field of study. So she is under constant pressure to try to stretch out her magic. Harrisford, on the other hand, faces no such disadvantage. But underneath his bravado he desperately wants independence from his father, who shows no affection for him. While supported financially, Harrisford lacks emotional support from his father. His mother left when he was a young child, so he has no support on that end, either. There’s definitely a dichotomy of circumstances between Gwen and Harrisford. Where one has emotional or financial support, the other does not, which creates additional friction amongst their academic rivalry.
I enjoyed Chow’s creativity with meshing an urban, contemporary setting and fantasy elements. For example, humans don’t inherently have magic. They must purchase it to perform magical acts. There are animal familiars, which is not necessarily novel, but the bond between animal and human requires approval and a license. Gwen and Harrisford also study different subclasses of veterinary science: Magical Familiars (Gwen) and Mythical Creatures (Harrisford). The former treats familiars whereas the latter treats other magical creatures such as unicorns and dragons. There are lots of creative tidbits like that thrown in that I found delightful.
I also enjoyed the graduate school academic lodging setting. Gwen isn’t a very social person. Yet as she becomes more involved in the magical mystery, she seeks out her peers and her community grows. With these secondary characters Chow incorporates more diversity between Gwen’s best friend, who is Black; and two other dorm hall mates, one who is nonbinary and the other who is trans. There is also a snarky cat companion, which is always a plus.
The chemistry between Gwen and Harrisford is pretty average. They have some decent banter and some key slow burn moments to ratchet up the tension. However, I didn’t quite think it reached its potential. Their insecurities throw cold water on the tension, which persists because of a lack of communication. The story is also quite predictable, which I think takes some wind out of the sail since the reader has a general idea of what will happen. There is a plot twist at the end, though, which I did not expect and I hope there is a forthcoming explanation in the next book.
Although I overall enjoyed this book, there are a few elements that caused me to lower my rating. The first is everything seems to conveniently fall into place. There are a number of events where the stakes are high, yet everything just works out. I found that a bit mind boggling since Gwen and her friends are fishing around in dangerous waters. Second, the setting is clearly contemporary since there are examples of technology from their wrist straps to the veterinary medical devices and more. However, there don’t seem to be any cameras around. I was astounded that there were no cameras for authorities to reference after Gwen and Harrisford and others poked around into things. This lack of surveillance seemed like a massive oversight to the plot. There were a couple of other actions that nonplussed me, but they contain spoilers, so I’ll leave it at that.
Despite some elements that required more suspension of disbelief, I had a good time with STRANGE FAMILIARS. I absolutely plan to read the finale to this duology. STRANGE FAMILIARS is perfect for readers who love magical school environments, challenging the oligarchy, and some fantasy with their romance.
Rating: 3.75
Content warnings: sexual content, parental abandonment, violence, self harm, racism
Reading format: Kindle e-book
I’m glad this mostly worked out for you, I need to read it also. I’m curious about the things that didn’t work, like the lack of cameras, which does seem odd. I didn’t realize this was a series, so I’ll have to read it before the next book comes out!
I think you’ll overall enjoy it, but you might be irked by some of the same things as me!
I’m glad to see you enjoyed this one for the most part. A beautiful copy of it came in one of my book boxes, and now I’m even more excited to read it. 😊
It’s easy to read, just don’t think too, too hard about it, lol. I had fun with it.
I enjoyed this too though I was hoping for more focus on the veterinarian aspect. Thanks for sharing your thoughts
I thought there’d be a little more about the vet aspect, too, but that’s ok. It was still a fun read and I’m looking forward to the next one.