The Strangely Beautiful Series is a series of Victorian Gothic novels about Percy Parker, an albino girl who sees ghosts, written by Leanna Renee Hieber. After being raised by nuns her entire life, she is sent to Athens Academy on her 17th birthday so she might have a chance to make it somewhere in the world. While at Athens, her fate becomes tied up with the guard and their leader, Alexi Rychman, who is a mathematics professor at Athens. The guard is this world's last line of defense against the forces of the netherworld and they need to figure out that Percy is their last hope before it's too late.
The Strangely Beautiful Series is a quartet of novels and various short stories documenting the world of Percy Parker and the guard. Common elements include long titles and using words like lyrical, ethereal, mystical, gothic, supernatural, and Victorian to describe the books. Each of the four books has amazing cover art which can be viewed here.
This series provides examples of:
- Babies Ever After: In the epilogue of the second book.
- Boy Meets Ghoul: Jane is in love with a ghost.
- Britain Is Only London: Subverted in the second book. The first book plays this trope straight.
- The Chosen One: Percy was chosen to house the spirit of Persephone, Alexi was chosen to house the spirit of an ancient phoenix, and the five other members of the guard house muses of healing, intuition, heart, creativity, and memory.
- Dances and Balls: Percy attends one for the first time in the first book.
- Everybody Hates Hades: It's established he isn't Satan or a God of Evil but he's still bad.
- Hellhound: The guard faces Cerberus at the end of the first book and they mention previously defeating the black dog of Newgate.
- Historical Fantasy: It's a fantasy taking place in Victorian era London.
- Hollywood Exorcism: It's the main duty of the guard.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: Percy, although they tend to come off as creepy to people who don't know her.
- Medusa: She's The Dragon in the first book.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: the back story for the conflict involves Hades murdering Persephone's lover.
- My Greatest Failure: Alexi has a sister in a wheel chair due to an unexpected, supernatural attack on his house. She serves as a reminder of why he has to be careful who he lets in his life.
- Omniglot: Percy can speak and understand at least some of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, French, Swedish, Spanish Portuguese, Italian, Gaelic, Aramaic, Russian, and Mandarin.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: The unfinished business variety who are in danger of being corrupted by Hades.
- Overly Long Name: Lucretia Marie O'Shannon Connor, aka Jane.
- Spirit World: Called the whisper world, souls pass through here before passing on to the great beyond. Too bad they have to get past Hades first.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Between Percy and Alexi.
