On April 17, the NY Times Book Review published a list of Beguiling New Fantasy Novels. I immediately put holds at Minuteman for three of them, and the second one to become available, after 12 weeks on hold, was Half City, by Kate Golden.
As with Weavingshaw, it ended on quite a cliff-hanger. So I’m very much looking forward to the sequel (Cursed City), expected to be released in late September.
The book takes place in Astera—the Half City, the country’s epicenter of culture, business, and politics, located on the glittering edge of the eastern seaboard. It even has its own Hellmouth: there was more deviant activity in Astera than anywhere else in the world because the Chasm was ripped open many millennia ago by the then High Thane of the Brood when he released deviants from the underworld, making it the largest and oldest gateway to hell.
I enjoyed reading about Viv Abbot and Reid Graveheart. The story is told from Viv’s point of view.
Viv works at the Windsor, Astera’s largest and most well-funded museum, gallery, and research institute: I’m an aeon—a type of hunter who has a second sight. Meaning I get a full-body buzz just being in the presence of a deviant.
And Reid is a reformed demon who teaches at Harker Academy for Deviant Defense, sort of a Hogwarts for hunters, accessed via a portal in the Windsor.
Dean Driscoll speech at orientation: Save lives. Don’t turn. Don’t die. Have a great semester.
List of ingredients to brew a syrabraxa: The only spell that could help me shed my scaly huntress skin and emerge a beautiful human-woman butterfly. It’s all in Lymantrian, but it’s been translated into English in the footnotes.
Liquified blade of the third Celestial bloom
Eye of the conjuring witch
Aeon’s blood
If Penny is the sun and I’m the moon, Sophia is all the stars in the sky, Elliot is a mellow haze of clouds, and Peter is the astronomer on the ground taking it all in.
Sophia’s Halloween costume: Medusa bikini and snake wig, with heeled boots and a gauzy emerald-green skirt that flutters when she walks. Glitter shines off her skin. Thick winged eyeliner accentuates her already dramatic silent film-star eyes.
Viv finally names her daggers Angel and Hellion.
Acknowledgments: And last but never, ever least, thank you to my readers. Your support and enthusiasm have changed my life. I’ll never have the right language to thank you properly, so I’ll just say this: Every word I write is for you. Please don’t hate me for the cliffhangers.
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