Reviewed by David T. Valentin
White Trash Warlock
By David R. Slayton
Narrated by Michael David Axtell
Urban Fantasy
★★★★★
White Trash Warlock follows the witch Adam Binder as he searches for a Warlock who’s been creating charms out of pieces of immortals—Elves, Dwarves, Leprechauns, etc. He’s a witch who can see into the spirit world, a world filled with all sorts of strange spirits and species of people. After a bizarre magical incident between Bobby Binder, Adam’s brother, and Annie Binder, Bobby’s wife, Bobby is forced to call his estranged brother Adam for help. When Adam arrives at Bobby’s in Denver, he comes to realize the problem goes beyond sickly Annie. And worse of all? It’s a problem not even the Immortals with all their magical talents can deal with either.
The world David R. Slayton’s spins together is nonchalant in the sense that it doesn’t thrust you into the fantasy elements of the book right away. Instead, it slowly eases you into them by presenting magic as something that just is. The tone of White Trash Warlock, the pacing and even the worldbuilding is reminiscent of Avatar: The Last Airbender, except with a more urban and contemporary twist.
The world is ripe with wonder, leaving you just amazed as some of the characters who witness the spirit world for the first time within the plot. As the plot unravels, you realize that despite even the Immortals having a vast amount of knowledge on the realms that exist and magic, there is a lot that will come to pass that’s still shrouded in mystery.
David R. Slayton also crafts unique characters with complex motivations and understandings of the worlds around them, a recipe that slowly unravels itself as a found-family trope all while using magic as a metaphor of queerness and queer experiences.
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