Half City

Last year, I loved Kate Golden‘s contemporary romance, If Not for My Baby, and I’ve been excited to read more from her. This year introduces her Harker Academy series; the first installment, Half City, came out in February. With the sequel to that due in just a few weeks, it was time for me to catch up!

Half City sets up an urban fantasy world, centered in the city of Astera. Viv Abbot, like her late father, is a bloodthirsty demon hunter, but everyone in her life—including her own mom!—is none the wiser. Viv pretends to be a normal 21-year-old, but the charade is harder to keep up when she’s recruited to enroll in a secret demon hunting college, Harker Academy for Deviant Defense. There, Viv makes friends who are a lot like her. She also has a love-hate relationship with her demon instructor, Reid Graveheart. Viv’s secret reason for attending is to find out who murdered her dad, but with new attacks happening at her school, the stakes are higher than she realized.

What I Liked:

• Gritty world. I don’t read much urban fantasy, but I enjoyed the world-building in Half City. It seems to be a United States like we know it, but unbeknownst to regular mortals, there are supernatural beings and deviants walking among us. The city Viv grew up in, Astera, is rife with vampires, demons, and more. It’s also plagued by drugs (specifically, something called poppy) and has sketchier parts of town that would be better left avoided.
• Found family. In her regular life, Viv has a tense relationship with her mom and sister, a distant relationship with her boring rich boyfriend, and is only close to her bestie and roommate, Penny. But upon enrolling at Harker Academy, suddenly Viv has fellow demon hunters to bond with. She can be her (almost) full self for the first time, and she latches onto her new friends quickly. I enjoyed getting to know her unlikely group with their distinct personalities.
• Grappling with identity. Viv is a sort of black cat. She’s moody and impulsive, filled with self-loathing, and wracked with guilt since seeing her dad die when she was 10. She’s a grumpy loner, and she wishes she could eliminate the killer urges inside of her. If only she could connect with her family and be a normal young woman. There’s an emotional undercurrent within her, but will she ever be at peace with who she is?
• Reid. He’s a demon who’s chosen a better path, an instructor at Harker Academy, and Viv’s instant enemy. Also, he’s hot and has a tortured past. I really enjoyed seeing Viv and Reid slowly become closer and more intimate. I’m not sure what their romantic future holds in the rest of this series (yo, that ending has me worried…), but I’m Team Reid!

Final Thoughts

Half City is an action-packed urban fantasy for people who enjoy dark academia vibes, seeking justice and vengeance, and some enemies-to-lovers demon romance on the side. There’s a lot going on in this book, and it indulges readers with plenty of explosive scenes and emotional complexity. I’m eager to continue the Harker Academy series, and luckily, I won’t have to wait long at all. The second book, Cursed City, comes out on September 29th, but I have an ARC ready for me now. Stay tuned for my review of that later this month!

Special thanks to Ace and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Get the Book

You can buy Half City here – it’s available as a paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

Half City by Kate Golden
Series	Harker Academy (#1)
Audience	Adult
Genre	Urban Fantasy; Romantasy
Number of Pages	496
Format I Read	Ebook (NetGalley ARC)
Original Publication Date	February 17, 2026
Publisher	Ace

Official Summary

INSTANT #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER!

“Golden keeps you on the edge of your seat.”–New York Times

This beautiful trade paperback of Half City includes stunning interior cover art!

Welcome to Harker Academy for Deviant Defense. Keep your daggers sharp, and your wits even sharper.

Viv Abbot is an average twenty-one-year-old girl. She lives in an expensive city where the rent is too high, works long hours at a thankless job, and is dating a guy she doesn’t even like in the hopes of winning her prickly mother’s approval.

She also happens to be a demon hunter.

Ever since her father’s murder, she’s been forced to hunt deviants alone, meaning everyone, including her family, sees her as an outsider . . . until the day she crosses paths with a dangerously alluring demon, Reid Graveheart. The reformed deviant tells her of a school for people just like her: Harker Academy for Deviant Defense. If she enrolls, she’ll learn to hone her craft, work with other hunters, and never be alone again.

But Viv has a deadly secret. One that not even her new friends at Harker can know about, not if the school might hold the answers to untangling the mystery surrounding Viv’s father’s death. When strange occurrences begin to plague the students, Viv will have to figure out who she can trust, all while trying to ace her classes, avoid falling for a demon, and make it through her first year at Harker in one piece. How hard could that be?