Spotlight & Giveaway: Secondhand Luck by Kim Harrison

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Kim Harrison’s new release: Secondhand Luck

Against an ancient shadow with a deadly agenda, Petra Grady’s luck may be about to run out, in the next book in the enthralling contemporary fantasy series from the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Hollows novels.

It’s been months since Petra Grady bonded with the shadow Pluck. With the help of researcher Benedict Strom, she has made a place for herself at St. Unoc University as the first weaver to use shadow magic in a thousand years. But some are not happy to acknowledge the new shadow/weaver pair, and Petra and Pluck aren’t surprised when they’re blamed for every recent trouble.

When a new weaver is drawn to St. Unoc, Pluck quickly realizes the novice magic user has not come alone. Trailing her is Thoth, a devious shadow responsible for betraying his own kind and setting mage against weaver thousands of years ago. His goal hasn’t changed, and when Thoth turns both the mage courts and the university against Petra, she and Pluck must risk everything to uncover a truth that even Pluck has forgotten.

Shadows, though, have earned their terrifying reputation, and if Petra can’t prove her and Pluck’s innocence and capture Thoth, any hope of balance will be gone—taking Pluck and her with it.

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from Secondhand Luck 

The coffeehouse was a familiar mix of shoppers grabbing a quick bite and silent, focused people working on their laptops, gazes fixed and lukewarm cups of coffee beside them. The Chicago River was only a few blocks off, and I stifled a shiver when the wind drove pellets of snow against the wide windows, pattering like rain. It felt good to be out of St. Unoc-even if my thin Arizona blood couldn’t handle the cold-and I hunched deeper into my admittedly lightweight coat as I waited for Lev to come back with coffee.

All the better to fit in with, my dear, I thought as I scanned the café for our target. Chicago had a decent-size mage population, which meant glittery dross hung in the corners like bits of straw paper and discarded stirring sticks-and my nose wrinkled in disgust at the waste created by magic use. Unlike mundanes, mages, sweepers, and Spinners could all see the latent, dangerous energy to some degree, but only sweepers and Spinners could physically handle it without issue.

It wasn’t illegal for mages to discard their dross at the point of magic; in fact, I harbored the belief that most mages did it for the amusement factor, getting a kick out of watching an oblivious mundane step in it like dog doo, where it invariably fractured into bad luck. I’d always thought the practice criminally risky. Too many accidents might break the silence of our existence and expose us. Everyone was supposed to work to keep the silence. Most mages equated that with sweepers cleaning up after them.

I wasn’t a sweeper anymore, having found my true potential as a weaver, but it was hard to let go of the feeling of passive discrimination, and I risked a glance at Benedict sitting with a smiling woman at the far end of the store. He was the bait in this bad-mage trap-clearly the most affluent of our four-person team. It was a good bet that, as innocuous as the woman seemed, we had found our target.

Lev’s militia intel hadn’t included a description, other than it was a woman who had been magically mugging both human and mage alike for the last three months. Three months, and all they had was that she was an ether mage, stealing everything in her take’s wallet, both physical and phone. She blotted out the incriminating memories, leaving her victims oblivious until after the fact. All we had was that she tended to pick up her marks around here. Sloppy.

But I suppose if you could magic the memory of yourself right out of someone’s mind, you could afford to be a little sloppy.

The door chimes rang, and I pulled my collar closer when two men came in, coats open as if oblivious to the cold. So unfair, I thought when the draft hit me. “You okay, Pluck?” I whispered as I fingered my lodestone, safe around my neck.

A deeper cold tingled against my fingertips, the sensation somehow carrying a feeling of mirth. I am the cold, sifted dryly through my mind, and I smiled as I tucked the rough, semitransparent, greenish-black crystal behind my sweater, where it made a cold spot against me. Living shadows did best in the dark, and though Pluck could tolerate light if he took a form, a sleek hairless dog the size of a Doberman would attract a lot of attention. His snake aspect would be even worse. I usually discouraged him from hiding in the wire-wrapped chunk of moldavite, but the longer he was in it, the more dark matter accumulated in it-and the stronger my magic was.

I was pretty sure that was our coffee sitting at the take-out counter, and still Lev chatted up the barista, either to make sure she wasn’t the mage we were looking for or, more likely, because the trim woman was very much his type. Lev was the lead on this, being mage militia-our clandestine police force in a world where magic wasn’t supposed to exist. His recent promotion put him as Master Ranger Lev Evander, but bunnies would lay eggs before I’d call him that, especially when the promotion had been so he could better babysit Pluck and me.

Agreeing to work with-not for-the militia had been the best of my bad choices, and until I found a way out of my agreement, I was splitting my time between the militia and working for St. Unoc University, one of a few mage schools of higher learning. Both the university and the militia wanted to know if a living shadow could overpower ether magic-which was why I was here, freezing my toes off in Chicago in November.

And where I went, Dr. Benedict Strom, my boyfriend and one-time darling of St. Unoc University, pulled strings to find a reason to follow. If we were lucky, we’d snag the thief this afternoon, giving Pluck and me time to check out the local high school for a possible weaver hiding among the sweeper population. Catching a badly behaving ether mage would put some money in my pocket, but finding a weaver was my true goal. That, and a really good pizza.

This is taking too long, I thought as Lev finally gathered our coffees and headed over. St. Unoc had an artificially high ratio of magic users to mundanes. Though still covert, magic was an everyday occurrence at the university. Here, in downtown Chicago, any blatant show of the paranormal would get everyone in trouble. We had to be fast and subtle. Fast I could handle. Subtle . . . not so much.

“The barista is clear?” I asked when Lev set a coffee in front of me, and the young man with his intentionally too-long hair nodded. Cold, I wrapped both my hands around the paper cup to try to warm them. Steam rose between me and my view of Benedict and the possible suspect.

Jealousy flickered, soothed by Pluck’s confident thoughts twining about mine. Once, sharing mental space had given me a migraine. Not bad considering anyone else but a weaver would be driven insane by it. That had been months ago, and now all that remained was a faint sense of fizzing, the cold of pure energy diving deep in my mind whenever we touched.

Lev dragged a stool closer to the high table, the slim, shorter man easing himself onto it with a casual hip shift. He was wearing a tatty cloth coat and worn knit hat, but he still looked military to me, even slouched as he was. It was something in the eyes, the walk: steady, observant, not a flinch when a crash came from behind the counter. A lodestone glittered from one ear, the glass more precious than the diamond it was trying to mimic. He was a mage, obviously, but I’d never felt slighted in his presence, not even once, and I trusted him, had trusted him, with my life.

“I got some of those little scones,” he said as he unwrapped the brightly patterned paper. “You want one?”

I shook my head, too nervous to eat. “To better blend in?” I guessed, and his smile widened into a grin.

“Because I’m hungry,” he said as he shoved an entire scone into his mouth. “Don’t look at them,” he said, his words garbled.

I grimaced, knowing he was right. Much to my surprise, Pluck ghosted out of the moldavite lodestone. The shadow was careful to remain in a near pure-energy state that would be hard to see, his hazy, tingling wash of presence slipping down my arm like an icy aura until he coalesced into a wispy snake wrapped around my wrist. Large dog, small snake: the living energy was what he wanted to be.

“It’s got to be her,” I said, annoyed at how close their heads were when Benedict showed the pretty brunette something on his phone and she giggled.

An unexpected wave of amusement hit me. Pluck’s, obviously. If you want him to do more than kiss you, you should mention it. Good men require an invite, the shadow suggested.

Excerpted from Secondhand Luck by Kim Harrison Copyright © 2026 by Kim Harrison. Excerpted by permission of Ace. All rights reserved.

Excerpt. ©Kim Harrison. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

Giveaway: One copy of SECONDHAND LUCK for a U.S. only winner.

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Meet the Author:

Kim Harrison is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Hollows series, including Demon’s Bluff, Demons of Good and Evil, and Trouble with the Cursed. She has also published traditional fantasy under the name Dawn Cook. Kim was born and raised in Michigan and between other projects is currently working on a new Hollows book.

Buy link: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/688282/secondhand-luck-by-kim-harrison/