Book Review: Half City

I loved Kate Golden’s A Dawn of Onyx series so when I heard that her next series was a dark academia urban fantasy romance, I was instantly intrigued. I just finished the first book in her new Harker Academy series, Half City, and the ending – while not a massive cliffhanger – is still a cliffhanger and I need to know what happens next!

The novel follows Viv Abbott, a 21 year old demon hunter. Viv is a demon hunter, but no one knows she is a hunter or the even bigger secret that she is a rare type of hunter that comes into their powers as children instead of manifesting their abilities in their teens like all other hunters. The only person who knew was her father, also a hunter, but he was killed before her eyes by demons when she was a kid. Now, working part time at a museum during the day, and slaying demons at night she gets recruited by an instructor at Harker Academy – an academy for young people just like her to learn how to battle deviants. Deviants include demons, vampires, ghouls, weres, and more. The instructor recruiting her to the academy, Reid Graveheart, just so happens to also be extremely good looking. And he’s also a reformed demon….

While at Harker, Viv finally feels like she’s found a place to belong. Her relationship with her mom and sister have been strained since her father was killed and she’s had to keep the secret of her abilities from her best friend, Penny. But now with new hunter friends she feels like she can be herself – just as long as they don’t find out her secret.

Meanwhile, weird attacks have been happening at the school, which is supposed to be the safest place. Who is behind the attacks? What are they after? Can Viv trust Reid even though he doesn’t take souls anymore? Will they give in to their attraction to one another?

I really enjoyed this book. I loved the storyline and the whole academy and dark city atmosphere. It was dark without being scary, which was perfect for me because I don’t like scary or horror. I loved all the characterrs, although Viv annoyed me at times because I felt like she was unnecessarily mean to Reid for the first half of the book. Parts of the beginning and middle seemed a bit slow, but it really picked up in the last 20-25% or so and then it was nonstop action, revelations, twists, and turns that I did not see coming. I was really trying to figure out for most of the book who was really the “bad” person.

Spoiler Alert
I am interested to see what will happen in the next book with Reid being possibly taken and the introduction of his “bad” brother, Deacon. The “good” and “bad” brothers was giving Vampire Diaries to me and I hope Deacon gets a good storyline, but that Viv ends up with Reid.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and can’t wait to see what happens next when book 2 is released this fall!

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