White Trash Warlock

David R Slayton
Completed 2/10/2024, Reviewed 2/10/2024
4 stars

I thought this book would be a light-hearted urban fantasy farce based on the title.  After the last book I read, I needed one.  But this turned out to be a very serious drama, featuring the struggles of a gay mage who grew up very poor in rural Oklahoma and goes to Denver to help his estranged brother out of a supernatural nightmare.  Despite being so serious, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It has action, suspense, and most of all, heart.  And it has a very interesting magic system along with the usual inhabitants of fantasy:  elves, leprechauns, gnomes, and reapers.

Adam Binder is a young gay man living with his great aunt, who is also a mage, in her trailer in Oklahoma.  He’s been searching for his father who he believes was a bad mage and disappeared when he was around ten.  The only clues he has are bad magical items that pop up from time to time.  Out of the blue, he gets a text from his brother Bobby, who is a doctor in Denver, to call him.  He tells Adam that something is wrong with his wife and only he can help.  So he makes the trek to Denver to find that she is being possessed by a gigantic evil force that floats over Denver like a huge black cloud.  Seeing this is beyond his powers, he reluctantly asks the elven Guardians for help battle this terrible menace.

The characters of Adam and Bobby, along with their mother, are very complex characters.  Turns out that Adam’s dad was very abusive.  Bobby, who is ten years older than Adam, was his protector, but Adam felt betrayed by him when he locked Adam up in an insane asylum for hearing voices.  The voices, of course, were the beginnings of Adam’s magical ability.  Their mother, a Bible-thumper, cosigned the documents to lock up the teenager.  After escaping at the age of eighteen, Adam escaped and left his mother and brother behind.  Now Adam is trying his best to learn magic skills while dealing with being gay in rural country, Bobby is a doctor who goes by Robert and lives with his wife in the ‘burbs, and their chain smoking, God fearing mother is staying with Robert to take care of his mysteriously ailing wife.  Needless to say, all the interactions of the family are difficult and tense.  

Adam’s one source of joy is Vic, a cop whose life he saved by slicing a piece of his soul and stitching it in the fatally shot cop.  Now they are connected in a mysterious way, and Adam finds that his attraction to Vic is reciprocated.  However, he doesn’t know how to deal with someone who actually likes him, second guessing that it is their magical connection that is causing Vic’s feelings.  

There are two elves who play key roles in this story, Argent, Queen of the Elves, and her brother Silver, who is a Prince.  They are also pretty complex characters who go from being stand-offish and otherworldly to pragmatic and friendly.  There are other aspects to their relationship with Adam, but revealing that would be a spoiler.

I was so impressed by these characters that I was able to empathize with all of them.  I also thought the worldbuilding was just terrific.  And if you know Denver, you will get some of the unnamed references, like the May clock tower, Casa Bonita, and the amusement park (although I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be Elitch’s or Lakeside).  On top of the corporeal setting was a magical realm which Adam traversed with the Elves.  The realm was not always welcoming of humans and Adam gets imprisoned there for a while.  

I give this book four stars out of five.  It was so much more amazing than I thought it would be.  The only thing that was lacking a little was the writing.  It felt very plain, as many books with a good amount of action often are.  But I could overlook this because the plot, the characters, and the world all came together in a fascinating and engrossing way.  This book was not as widely read as it should have been, but it did get a 2021 nomination for Sci Fi/Fantasy novel in the Colorado Book Awards.  I can’t wait to read the rest of the trilogy.