Spotlight & Giveaway: Cursed City by Kate Golden

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Kate Golden’s new release: Cursed City

Welcome back to Harker Academy for Deviant Defense, where the line between hunter and hunted has never been thinner.

To rescue someone close to her, Viv must team up with Reid’s violent, unpredictable older brother, Deacon. Her uneasy truce with him offers Viv something Reid never could: the chance to embrace her darkness.

Viv’s mission takes her to the center of Astera’s seedy underbelly with none other than the White Stag as her guide. But when a bounty on Viv’s head puts those she cares about in danger, Viv will be forced to go to lengths she never dreamed in order to protect them.

With enemies closing in from all sides and a ticking clock on her life, Viv must save the Half City from destruction while surviving a betrayal that strikes at the heart of everything she’s fighting for. Because in a world where monsters wear familiar faces and temptation cuts deeper than any blade, making it through her second semester at Harker will take more than skill—it will take everything Viv has left to give. Who can she really trust in a city that thrives on lies?

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from Cursed City 

The sun is setting over Astera, and I am dying.
“It’s about your brother…” My voice is garbled by all the blood pooling in my mouth. Deacon—all hulking, demonic, six foot six inches of him—drags me through grime and snow to hurl me inside his club. I land hard and my body shrieks in pain. Another bout of hacking results in a gory splatter of red on Fever Dream’s polished concrete floors.
Baz follows Deacon inside, as silent and looming as a shadow, his dark hair hanging mournfully in front of his face. He looks wary of me—violet eyes flitting back and forth between my crumpled, shivering body and his menacing boss. A baby-faced bartender leans over the bar with interest, fangs jutting from his mouth at the sight my blood. An elegant, bronze-skinned acrobat peers up from her stretches on the raised dais where the DJ equipment stands.
“Speak,” Deacon commands. His pale eyes study the sizzled flesh of my back—the place where I carry the deadliest spell known to man—with something that isn’t quite fear, but is more wary than curiosity.
“The Brood…” My lungs crackle with each word. “When Reid—”
“What’s all that noise?” When I turn toward the voice I find Ward, the handsome werewolf bartender I met a week ago, coming out from a swinging door behind the bar. He’s holding a dishrag and a bottle of gin. His bright green eyes widen at the sight of me. “Snow White?”
Deacon ignores him. “What happened to my brother, Vivienne.”
At that Ward straightens, leaves the bottle and rag onto the bar top, and stalks over to Deacon’s side.
“He’s at the docks,” I wheeze. “Finn, the High Thane’s son, has him. Please, they’re going to—” I cough again. Dim lights and Grecian columns and the lofted ceiling swirl around me. “They’re going to kill him.”
A curse rips from Deacon, the sound rumbling through the club like an earthquake. Despite my best efforts, I cower at the fury rippling off his broad shoulders and stern jaw. “Heal her,” he commands. I’m not sure who he’s talking to, because my sight has faded into bursts and splotches. When I can no longer hold myself up, I slump to the floor.
Before consciousness slips away from me, I’m lifted by ice-cold hands. From the weak hum beneath my skin, I know it’s a deviant, but I’m too depleted to squirm away.
“Don’t let any Brood in tonight,” Deacon growls. “Not until we return. And nobody breathes a word of this outside these walls, yeah?” Quiet murmurs of agreement. “And for the love of Christ,” Deacon barks to whoever is holding me. Baz, I’d guess from the vampiric chill of his skin. “Don’t let her bleed all over the lounge.”
With that, two sets of feet file outside before the massive front doors swing closed with a hideous thud.
“Will they save him?” I don’t care what happens to me. But Reid, but Reid—
I don’t hear Baz’s response. Only the rushing of my desperate heartbeat, the shimmering twinkle of the syrabraxa below my skin, and the gentle thump of club music. Something warm and wet brushes my lips and an endless void swallows me whole.
***
I awake like a thunder clap. Snapping upright, gasping for air, clutching at my chest in awe that I am whole and I am breathing. Amid the darkness, it takes me a second to figure out where I am—sitting atop a still made bed, lit by city lights through a softly draped window, drenched in prickly sweat. Some kind of luxurious guest room within Fever Dream—
Then the pain hits. A wicked throb down my spine. Like I slept funny but for the better half of a millennia. I try to stretch my neck and back to no avail. In fact, I think I make things worse.
And then, the memories…
Reid. Body bruised and bleeding. Crimson claws bared, already dripping with gore. Facing off against Finn and his men so that I’d have a shot at survival. So that Penny could have a shot at survival.
It’s time I pay for my sins. That’s what he’d said to me. With that look in his eyes. Acceptance. Self-sacrifice. As if his death would be a fair trade for simply being what he is…
If he died for me—if he died feeling he deserved to—
The heartbreak is enough to sever me in two.

Excerpted from Cursed City by Kate Golden Copyright © 2026 by Kate Golden. Excerpted by permission of Ace. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Excerpt. ©Kate Golden. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

Giveaway: 1 finished copy CURSED CITY (U.S. only, 18+)

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Meet the Author:

Kate Golden is the USA Today bestselling author of both The Sacred Stones and Harker Academy trilogies. When she isn’t writing, Kate is an avid book reader, puzzle addict, and game night enthusiast. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their puppy, Milo.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/778208/cursed-city-by-kate-golden/