White Trash Warlock (The Adam Binder Novels, Book 1)
“Dark, haunting, lyrical, and innovative, beautiful and heartfelt . . .”
The story sounds rather absurd: a broke, gay, millennial warlock lives in a trailer park in Oklahoma and finds himself in deep when his older brother Bobby asks him to help his wife. Oh, and she’s possessed by a demon. Most people might close the book right there and call it a night or play X-Box, but that would be a mistake.
Adam Binder spends a while in a psych ward, put there by his older brother for hearing and seeing things that weren’t there, but in reality Adam has the ability to see what most others cannot, a world populated by fairytale creatures such as gnomes and elves. Of course he doesn’t talk to Bobby, still holding a grudge for being committed, but when Bobby reaches out because his wife is possessed by a murderous spirit, Adam decides to lend a hand—if only to rub it in Bobby’s face, of course.
So Adam packs his bags, leaves the trailer park in Guthrie, OK, and heads to Denver to see what’s what, only to find that things are much worse than he expected.
Most urban fantasies are chockablock full uber-cool heroes with some sort of ultra-nifty magic that allows them to hold the upper hand on whatever supernatural baddies roam the ether. This is not one of those books. Sure, Adam has magic, but it’s not so dreadful that the reader knows the antagonists are in for a serious beat down. In fact, it’s this low-key approach draws the reader into this this well-crafted world.
Slayton deftly crafts Binder’s personality and backstory without bogging the reader down in unnecessary detail, which allows the storyline unfold almost organically. This is a tough enough task for veteran writers, much less a debut novelist like Slayton. This attention to detail in character development, for each nuanced character, creates the impression that this might just be real.
Adam’s somewhat haunted character aside, the story would have gone nowhere without a cohesive, well-thought out plot (twists and turns included) to urge the reader in their investigation of the world Slayton creates. This is not just a book with a LGBTQ+ protagonist, it is a well-written story with a LGBTQ+ protagonist, so much so that thoughts of gender orientations are secondary to the overall feeling of the book.
Dark, haunting, lyrical, and innovative, beautiful and heartfelt, White Trash Warlock by David R. Slayton is crafted like something rarely seen in the world of urban fantasy: He’s given the reader something unique, which is rare and wonderful treat.