The Fantasy Archives · Book Review

I Read Half City and Now I Have a Demon Problem

by Kate Golden · Harker Academy, Book One

Tags: Fantasy · Dark Academia · Forbidden Romance · Monster Romance · New Adult · Series Starter

A demon hunter walks into a secret academy. Her instructor is a reformed demon. What could possibly go wrong? (Everything. Absolutely everything.)

I want to start by saying I went into Half City with approximately zero chill. A hidden college for hunters? A forbidden slow-burn between a heroine and her demon instructor? A city literally built on top of a sealed gateway to hell? Kate Golden had me at the premise and she did not let go.

Set in Astera — a sprawling half-mortal, half-supernatural city known as the "Half City" — this book drops us into a world where humans go about their daily lives completely oblivious to the hunters and deviants living among them. Thousands of years ago, the Chasm tore open as a gateway to the underworld, unleashing Deviants into the world. The Lymantrians — beings with angelic lineage — descended to fight them and seal it shut. They succeeded. Mostly. Then, because apparently no one learned anything, an entire city was built directly on top of the sealed gateway. Astera is that city.

"Who knew a demon and a huntress could have so much in common?"

Meet Vivienne Abbot

Viv is 21, fiercely independent, sarcastic to a fault, and secretly an Aeon — a near-extinct subspecies of Lymantrian hunter with the ability to physically sense Deviants through a full-body sensation. She's been a solo demon hunter her entire adult life, carrying the weight of watching her father get murdered in front of her when she was a child. Her relationship with her mother is strained, her boyfriend (Penny's brother James, whom she's clearly dating for her mom's sake and not because she's in love with him — we see you, Viv) is perfectly fine and perfectly boring, and she has no idea her world is about to completely shatter.

Enter Reid Graveheart. A reformed Deviant. Her new combat instructor at Harker Academy. Dark, powerful, morally gray, and absolutely not someone she should be developing feelings for. You know where this is going. You want it to go there anyway.

"When we're together, Viv… I don't know. I feel reborn — I see myself in your eyes and I like the reflection."

— Reid Graveheart

Places Worth Knowing

⚔ Harker Academy
The secret academy for hunters learning to hone their skills — accessed through a hidden gateway inside the Windsor Museum, of all places. Combat arenas, freshman dorms, and a planetarium garden hiding rare asphodel flowers. It's giving Hogwarts, if Hogwarts had a serious Deviant problem.

🔥 The Chasm
A gigantic crevasse running through the heart of Astera — the oldest and largest sealed gateway to the underworld. Mortals think it's a geological feature. It is not a geological feature.

🌙 Fever Dream / The White Stag's Domain
Astera's most infamous club, controlled by Deacon Graveheart — Reid's older brother and one of the most intriguing wildcards of the story. Neutral ground. Dangerous energy. Exactly the kind of place Viv should not end up at the end of book one.

Viv's Found Family

One of my favorite things about this book is Viv's found family at Harker. Her roommate Sophia is gorgeous, outgoing, and has this quietly fascinating uncanny ability to sense what people are feeling (I have Theories). Elliott is the lovable, lacrosse-playing golden retriever of the group. Peter is quiet, brilliant, and has a completely obvious crush on Sophia that I desperately need resolved. Together they make Harker feel lived-in and warm even when everything else is unraveling.

And then there's Penny — Viv's longtime best friend, the steady anchor to her ordinary life. James's sister. The one who keeps Viv tethered to who she was before all of this.

What Actually Happens (Light Spoilers)

At its core, Half City is about Viv learning she's not the lone hunter she thought she was — and that the world is far more dangerous and complicated than even her training prepared her for. The central mystery involves Kitty Briggs, a student who goes missing early on, and gradually unfolds into something much darker: a plot by the ruling Deviant faction, the Brood, to reopen the Chasm using a dark spell called the Syrabraxa — a spell that requires an Aeon host to power it.

Viv's rare bloodline makes her a target. The Dean of Harker — powerful warlock Edgar Driscoll, working for the High Thane — has been quietly collecting what he needs. Viv kills him at the end. Which would feel like a victory, except he was the only person who could break the spell that is now bound into her spine.

There's also the small matter of Viv's brother-in-law being a shapeshifter, the question of who actually killed her father, and the fact that Deacon Graveheart literally pulls her into his club on the final page.

What I Need Answered in Book Two

Unanswered & unwell about it:

• Can the Syrabraxa be removed from Viv's spine now that she's killed the only person who could break it?
• Was Reid kidnapped at the end? What is his full history with the Brood — and is he hiding something about Viv's father?
• What is Deacon Graveheart's actual deal, and why does he hate Reid so much?
• Sophia's ability to sense emotions. Is she something other than what she seems?
• My prediction, on the record: Reid was a Brood demon. He looks at Viv like he knows her. I am watching him.

✦ Archivist Approved ✦

★★★★☆

Dark academia meets monster romance in a city built on secrets and a sealed gateway to hell. The world-building is rich, the slow-burn is genuinely painful in the best way, and the ending will absolutely wreck you. Come for Reid, stay for the found family, panic about the Syrabraxa. I'll be rereading until book two arrives.