Review: Half City by Kate Golden

Half City (Harker Academy, #1)

by Kate Golden

Release Date: February 17, 2026

2026 Ace

Audiobook & Ebook ARC; 496 Pages

ISBN: 978-0593953433

ASIN:  ‎ B0F88X3LP9

Audiobook: B0FBH51228

Genre: Fiction / Urban Fantasy

Source: Review copy from publisher

 

4 / 5 Stars

 

Summary

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 just 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 when 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, and fast. All while trying to ace her classes, not fall for a demon, and make it through her first year at Harker in one piece. How hard could that be?

 

My Thoughts

Half City is one of those books that took me a little while to really get into, but now I'm fully invested. I think part of the problem is that I couldn't warm up to Viv at all, but I liked the world-building and the other characters enough to continue so when things really started to get interesting, I was in it for them and not necessarily for Viv. There were plenty of twists and turns and while some of them were a bit predictable, there were enough of them that caught me off guard to keep this story interesting.

 

First of all, let's start with Viv as a main character. While she eventually did grow on me somewhat, and I do understand why she is the way she is, there is something about how she looks down on others that is a bit condescending, as if her powers and how she has been fighting demons for her entire life grants her the right to be that way. When things go sideways later on in the book because of some bad decisions on her part, I was glad to see some redemptive arcs in her character development so I am hopeful the author created her this way on purpose and we will see how grow throughout the series.  For now, that is enough and while I can't empathize with her at the moment, I understand her a bit better by the end of the book and am glad to see the author is not neglecting character development.  

 

I did however, really enjoy the secondary characters in this book, and one character really caught me off guard as I did not guess what was happening there at all, so I am looking forward to learning more about them and seeing them grow and develop along with Viv.  For me, the secondary characters made up for Viv and her attitude.  And Deacon? Probably one of the best characters in this book so far, so mysterious and...I don't know what else to say about him at this point. But can't wait to find out more.

 

The plot actually moved a bit slowly at the beginning as it was focused on world-building and Viv's background, but when it picked up, it definitely picked up and I had to put the book down to think about all the little side plots that were going on. I liked the concept of the demon hunter academy and while I know the concept is not new and is quite tropy, it was still fun as all get out.  I did think the weakest point of the book was the 'romance', not because I am opposed to romance in this book, but because I didn't quite feel it yet. Don't get me wrong, I want some zap and some zing between Reid and Viv, nand while it was fun, I'm not fully feeling it. And I have some theories about our Reid and his role in this book.  And about Deacon. Should be some interesting times ahead for our characters. 

 

Verdict

Half City was an engaging read, and I enjoyed the audiobook quite a bit. While it did start a bit more slowly as it spent some time world-building and introducing characters, it built up to quite a crescendo in the end where I couldn't stop listening.  I enjoyed the overall investigation as well as the attacks on the school and thought the training was interesting, but I liked that kind of thing which is why I gravitate towards LitRPG because there are so many books with that trope.  I am glad to see the author put a lot of emphasis on character development as well as plot development and yet, there is still a lot of room for our characters to grow. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys urban fantasy and I am looking to my ARC read of book two.  

 

Review: The Great Vampiric Deception by Jolene Gettler

The Great Vampiric Deception

by Jolene Gettler

Release Date: November 16, 2023

2023 Stay Awkward Publishing 

Ebook Edition; 382 Pages

ISBN: 978-1738835638

ASIN: B0CK7DV8VS

Genre: Fiction / Romantic Fantasy / Urban Paranormal

Source: Review copy from author

3.75 / 5 Stars

Summary

Vampires exist. The use, abuse, and discard.

Victoria suffered unimaginable horrors and trauma from her four-year relationship with her vampire ex-boyfriend.  She was one of the lucky ones.

Years later, she enjoys a life of solitude and just wants to be left alone in her new mundane, uneventful life. Her quiet routine shatters to pieces when an unexpected guest joins her vampire victim support group, while an unknown danger stalks her from the shadows.

Who is stalking her? Are they connected to her past? Or did her newest member bring more than a century's worth of trauma into her life?

 

My Thoughts

The Great Vampiric Deception is not your typical vampire book, and that is precisely one of the reasons I enjoyed this book so much.  Vampires are not romanticized; in this book they are, for the most part, still relatively hidden from the human population, and those who do come across them are traumatized and abused, often for years, manipulated into doing a variety of things they do not wish to do. Personally, I prefer the dark, sleezier side of the vampire world than the romanticized one you see in Twilight, so this was much more to my liking. 

I really enjoyed the author's writing style and was immediately drawn into Victoria's world. I was honestly horrified at the things she suffered just in the Prologue and was honestly wondering what I was in for, considering the trigger warnings I was given before starting the book. For the most part, the author does not go into graphic detail about any of the abuse so a lot of it is left up to your imagination, and I have a lot of imagination so I don't know how Victoria managed to survive the four years she was with Lucas, her vampire boyfriend.  In order to cope with the trauma she experienced, she started a support group to have a safe environment to be able to discuss the traumas they suffered and to be able to cope with life after leaving the vampiric world. Despite the seriousness of the discussions, there was a lot of levity as well, and there were times I was openly chuckling when the group was trying to explain the difference between Interview With a Vampire or Twilight to one of the members who was somewhat clueless about the reality of vampire life.  These are the kinds of things that made this book really fun to read, and lightened the seriousness of the subjects/themes present in the book.

The characters were well drawn out and I loved, loved, loved Grayson the most. He was a vampire himself, having survived his own abusive relationship within the vampire world, and joined the suppor group for help having no where to turn for help. Victoria was vehemently against the idea as she is prejudiced again the vampire population in general, but is vetoed by the other members. We now have a this yang/yang effect between the two of them where Victoria is trying to figure out the Grayson's motives and she is trying to decide whether she can ever have a relationship again. The results let to some interesting consequences, one of which entirely broke my heart. It also let to some issues I had with the book.

 

I've been thinking about this for days, but there are some things in this book that bothered me. First of all, while I understood Victoria's trauma and the abuse she suffered, there were some things in here that really send the wrong message when it comes to manipulation and the start of manipulative behaviours in relationships. Questioning your partner over why they do certain things is not manipulative behaviour, especially if the other partner drops the subject and never brings it up again as they were just asking where the behaviour comes from.  Grayson is over 150 years old, did it never occur to Victoria the behaviour he was questioning was something women never did during his time period and he may not be familiar with it? Gosh, my husband and I are always questioning each other. If you are afraid to question you partner, that is emotional abuse. And my biggest beef, which led to the biggest consequence of all, Victoria unable to deal with her own emotions and behaviour, so she does what she does and IT IS JUSTIFIABLE BEHAVIOUR? Never, in my book.  It left such a bad taste in my mouth, it spoiled what was to that point, a 5-star read. Was the author trying to show how twisted thinking can be when a person does not deal with trauma? Hard to say, but I am hoping that is what it was.

 

Verdict

The Great Vampiric Deception was  a well-written novel of the effects and consequences trauma can have on relationships and on life in general. I loved how she described Victoria's daily routine and how a new person can impact established safe routines on a person who is dealing with the after-effects of an abusive relationship.  While the author didn't go into graphic detail, there was enough to be able to understand how horrific Victoria's life was when she was with her vampire boyfriend. I thoroughly loved Grayson and the novel did make me think about the themes of abuse, relationships, and consequences.  I chose to take it from the viewpoint of someone who is having difficulty dealing with their trauma, and the consequences of that, although I am not quite sure if that is what the author intended.