Corvinian Hark comes from a respected line of villains and received top marks at the exclusive university where his ancestors received their degrees in villainy. Alas, human corporations have nearly cornered the market on villainy, and the only internship in London was snapped up by one of his classmates, who quickly took over the Tower by dispatching her predecessor. Left without any good prospects, Corvinian temporarily took a post as caretaker of a safehouse for magical folk needing a bit of help surviving in expensive London. After eight years, Corvinian has noted that his tenants are just as temporary as his job. In fact, the vampire Michael was living there before it was a safehouse a century ago. After slipping into a hospital to kill his phoenix tenant before anyone notices she's not human, and sneaking out with the baby, The Powers That Be, aka his employers, promptly saddle Corvinian with a new and problematic tenant. Analiese is a foreign exchange student from Belgium and more importantly she's unclassified. Corvinian is given six months to figure out her status, in which case he will be promoted, or he's fired. Also, just in case she's actually a generic human, no one can let slip the magical world exists. How hard can it be for ten magical people, if you include Corvinian, to pretend to be normal humans for a few months?
The premise is humorous, and there are quite a few shenanigans as Corvinian does damage control to keep everything hidden from Analiese. The characterizations of the various magical tenants are unique. Vampires are powerful physically but cannot heal so Michael rarely leaves the house for fear of being injured for eternity. The necromancer started out human but due to his studies and tendency to replace his worn out parts with new ones is considered magical. The demon is constantly being summoned by idiots Ouija boards. You get the idea. For her part Analiese is an extremely private person and all attempts to get her to reveal any powers are epic fails. The do manage to rule out shapeshifters because she doesn't change with the full moon. Things meander along a bit slowly with Corvinian increasingly worried about his job until his villainous school friend, kidnaps Analiese to blackmail Corvinian who walks right into her trap to save his tenant. At that moment the story transforms into a superpowered style adventure as the nine tenants assault the villain's Tower to save their friends. It's like the family from the Incredibles springing into action. If only the book got to that point a little bit faster, but I still enjoyed this offbeat comedy that's something of a cross between superpowered and cozy fantasy.