#White Trash Warlock

[alien-blu]

If I had a nickel for every time a book I read had a blond, gay, magic guy named Adam who grew up in a trailer park in the southern US and worked as a mechanic to get by as the protagonist I'd have two nickels, which honestly isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote YES if you have finished the entire book.

vote NO if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[musicboxghost]

The romances in White Trash Warlock by David R. Slayton = Hide by Rainbow Kitten Surprise

The romance in Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots = Vampire Empire by Big Thief

Feel free to message and geek out about these books if you know them ❤️ Book fandoms are tiny but my love for them is immense.

[books-to-add-to-your-tbr]

Title: Adam Binder

Author: David R. Slayton

Series or standalone: series

Publication year: 2020

Genres: fiction, fantasy, LGBT+, paranormal, romance

Blurb: Guthrie was a good place to be from, but it wasn't a great place to live...not when you were like Adam. Adam Binder hasn't spoken to his brother in years, not since Bobby had him committed to a psych ward for hearing voices. When a murderous spirit possesses Bobby's wife and disrupts the perfect life he's built away from Oklahoma, he's forced to ask for his little brother's help. Adam is happy to escape the trailer park and get the chance to say "I told you so"...but he arrives in Denver to find the local magicians dead. It isn't long before Adam is the spirit's next target. To survive the confrontation, he'll have to risk bargaining with powers he'd rather avoid, including his first love: the elf who broke his heart. The Binder brothers don't realise that they're unwitting pawns in a game played by immortals. Death herself wants the spirit's head, and she's willing to destroy their family to reap it.

[moefling]

So I had this thought months ago that I wanted a fan shirt (I can't remember at the time if this was 1 Fandom in particular or if it started as multiple)

So with the audacity I got from my dad that I can try any craft/ diy and the millennial knowledge that I can just youtube it I decided to embroider a shirt

So I bought a shirt on Amazon (I was looking for a "football shirt" is what at the time I called it but idk if that is right so...) and I picked up some embroidery floss (big question why I bought a pack of mostly green when I got a black shirt and was going to use white floss.... 🤷‍♀️)

So that done comes the real conflict.... what am I embroidering?.....

So I think originally I was going to just make it a Fandom shirt so like any Fandom I was part of or liked... (now it is just a book/ webcomic shirt) but how am I listing them?

Once I started thinking out it I switched to couples and then it changed to include books but that brought even more questions...

So if it's couples do I go by ship name? But some of the books I wanted to use aren't big enough to have a ship name...

So like the couple ao3 tag? But I really don't want to embroider Alex and Henry’s full names....

Just first names? For some reason there is a lot of Alex's (tho now that im thinking about i think the only name that repeated was Charlie) and also what about legal name vs. nickname?

I'd just go with nicknames but what if the couples call each other but their legal name (malec) or they use a different name (zimbits)?

(At some point I switched this to just being books - originally the only webcomics I was including were also published but I added Castle Swimmer at the last moment without thinking so....)

What if I just went with book titles? But what about series? (And some book titles are long...)

Just use the series name! ... but most of the series names are just the MCs first name... and I'm not reping the entire Like Us series just Marrow...

And this logic keeps circling back around...

I tested out doing a little bit of each but I got a little mad at the uneven distribution and I had strong opinions on what I wanted some of them to be ( I love the firstprince ship name but for this project I really wanted to use the title)

I starred doing more planning related to placement and decided to just go with book titles and for series just the first book in the series. (Tho I did use just Tortall and I was a little mad about losing London Calling to Boyfriend Material and I really thought about leaving Captive Prince as Capri)

Once all the planning was done I... actually had to do the thing...

I'm glad I got stabilizer that was washable and worked in my printed so it just took a few tries to get the size correct and I could start

(And then restart after doing a quick Google search on the best way to embroider letters)

It was pretty easy, tho it did take awhile and would have taken longer if I was being really careful about following exact letter shape and stitch length. ....it also didn't help that Poppy realized embroidery floss was an OK sub for yarn to play with...

I did *cough* wait to wash any of the stabilizer off until the very end.... There was a cat in the sink when I finished the first one! It wasn't a problem tho because it washed out super easy and looks great!

... as I was taking the pics I realized i spelled Castle Swimmer wrong 😅 so maybe I'll just cut that one out later...

But overall I'm really happy with it and there is definitely room to add more when I want :) (tho I will have to remember what font and size I used because I was dumb and didn't save that...)

[aurorawest]

Reading update

White Trash Warlock by David R Slayton - 4.75/5 stars

Urban fantasy with a protagonist from a trailer park, who, for bonus points, got sectioned by his older brother as a teen. Daddy issues, mommy issues, and brother issues, what's not to like? I ordered everything else by this author I could find when I finished the book, including the other two books in this series.

The Fascinators by Andrew Eliopulos - DNF

Boring.

The Revolutionary and the Rogue by Blake Ferre - DNF

Boring, with the added crime of actual plot happening but still, somehow, nothing actually happening. I kept reading whole pages and realizing I had no idea what I'd just read.

The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard - DNF

OMFG CAN I CATCH A BREAK. This was such a disappointing DNF, too, because I'd really been looking forward to it. One of the characters is a spaceship and it bills itself as a space opera? Yes please. But after the initial marriage of convenience setup, it's just all a bunch of pointless, boring conversations. Nothing happens. I flipped ahead. Still nothing happening. Not a space opera but definitely cozy sci-fi, which I think I officially hate.

Honeytrap by Aster Glenn Gray - 5/5 stars

An FBI agent and a GRU agent get assigned to work a case together in 1959 and they fall in looooove. But oof, this book was so good. I'm not sure I've ever had a time skip hit me in the gut so hard. I really can't recommend this book enough, it fits squarely in my niche interest of mid-century America or Britain m/m romance. I think Natasha Pulley also awakened something in me with The Half Life of Valery K, because I seem to be a sucker for gay Soviet men. Speaking of, if you liked The Half Life of Valery K, I bet you'll like this too! Anyway, read this, but be prepared to be hurt by it.

Ordinary Monsters by JM Miro - 4/5 stars

X-men meets Strangers Things with a dash of English boarding school, set in Victorian Britain.

Human Enough by ES Yu - DNF

Promising until it devolved into boring, pointless conversations and tumblr posts on neurodivergence.

Olympic Enemies by Rebecca J Caffery - DNF

I put this down on page 12 and my wife grabbed it to flip through it, cackling at the amateurish prose.

Frost Bite by J Emery - 4.5/5 stars

Snowed-in cabin fic with an enemies to lovers romance between a vampire and a (former) vampire hunter. It was cute and a quick read.

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner - DNF

Very Not Like Other Girls. Also read a review that said pregnancy was a huge focus of the book, and that's a squick for me.

Reverie by Ryan La Sala - 3.75/5 stars

This book didn't quite live up to the promise of its beginning (missing memories, bizarre disruptions to time and space) and the writing was a little twee at times, but overall I enjoyed it. This was the author's debut, so I suspect subsequent books will probably be better. I did feel like the teenage main characters were weirdly inured to death, which also contributed to me knocking of a quarter of a star from what would otherwise have been a solid 4 star book.

All Souls Near & Nigh by Hailey Turner - 3/5 stars

If you like The Tarot Sequence by KD Edwards, this series might be worth picking up. I will say, though, that it's nowhere near as good. I think it's a combination of pacing and too many characters that detracts from my enjoyment of this series. This is the second book and I enjoyed it more than the first, probably because I sort of remembered the massive cast of characters from the first one. It's one of those things where I really don't think they're all necessary and some should be combined with others. The pacing is also...weird. It's pretty much nonstop action. At one point I think the main character drove back and forth between various crime scene locations and his office like 5 times in a day.

That said! Despite the issues, clearly I still picked up book 2, and I'll probably read book 3 at some point. I really like the two main characters.

[dabblingreturns]

Does anyone love the supernatural for

It's tangled family dynamics

Gritty haunted Americana setting(yes I relize it was filmed in BC and that Texas never looks like Texas in the show)

Urban fantasy magical politicing

Juxtaposition between trama and some truly funny jokes

Gayness

Muscle cars

But wish it was

More compact

More consistent

Explicitly gay

Didn't kill of ALL of its female charecters

Actually payed attention to seanery so that Denver looks different from oklahoma?

Suggest that maybe what this family actually needs is a bit more therapy?

Then have I got the book series for you.

The Adam Binder series by David R. Slayton

White trash warlock

Trailer park Trickster

Dead beat druid

This is not a paid promotion....i dont know the author.....but sometimes there are books that make me happy...and I think they would make other people happy. Anyway...they should be available at your local library, indie book store, or online

Also this car. This car is important:

[Image: white Oldsmobile cutlass]

[theslythernfreak]

top three books/book series at the moment?

!!!

The Tarot Sequence by KD Edwards (forever and always.ive reread all three of them like 5 times)

White Trash Warlock by David R Slayton (similar vibes to first one. i cant buy the 2nd one yet. i must be Patient)

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (reread it recently. cried a bit. 10/10. go read)

[jakeshandy]

Dinner Together.

Adam and Vic from The Adam Binder Series by @davidrslayton !

I love these boys more than I can possibly say.

[musicalmaster]

Imagine being so gay that a man you just met dies and you decide to split your magical life force with him even though you barley no him.

[fancifulpurposelesslovely]

The Sea Upon the Land - inspired by the Adam Binder series by David R. Slayton

[burntotears]

Vic: You came for me. Even hurt you came and found me. Adam: You had to know I would. I will always find you, Vicente Martinez. Vic: You came to hell for me, baby. Adam: It's really corny when you call me that. Vic: You love it, don't even try to lie to me. Adam: Like I could.

[o-avosetta]

Currently.

Gay warlock tries to save Denver, wishes his family would go to therapy.

[runekeepershymnal]

I've just started White Trash Warlock, and the line about how he'd "seen weirder shit than that, mostly in the Carolinas" has me sold. I appreciate respect for our weird shit.

[sincerelyveronica]

White Trash Warlock Review:

Let me begin with saying that I LOVED everything in this book! There was so much beauty and world-building that it took me on such an imaginative ride. Ok, so let me give you the synopsis.

Plot:

Guthrie was a good place to be from, but it wasn’t a great place to live, not when you were like Adam, in all the ways Adam was like Adam.

Adam Binder hasn’t spoken to his brother in years, not since Bobby had him committed to a psych ward for hearing voices. When a murderous spirit possesses Bobby’s wife and disrupts the perfect life he’s built away from Oklahoma, he’s forced to ask for his little brother’s help. Adam is happy to escape the trailer park and get the chance to say I told you so, but he arrives in Denver to find the local magicians dead.

It isn’t long before Adam is the spirit’s next target. To survive the confrontation, he’ll have to risk bargaining with powers he’d rather avoid, including his first love, the elf who broke his heart.

The Binder brothers don’t realize that they’re unwitting pawns in a game played by immortals. Death herself wants the spirit’s head, and she’s willing to destroy their family to reap it.

5/5 STARS

I only have positive things to say about this book! Firstly, I absolutely love Adam Binder and all his wonderfulness. He's a magician trying to make a living in this hard world. He comes from a magical family that lives in a trailer park. What more can I say?! This book had a great way of fleshing out characters and giving them such personal and relatable depth. Also, the world building in this book was on point! Much of the imagery and fantasy lore reminded me of many books within this genre. I love that I already knew about the Fae, Glamour, Warlocks, Witches, etc. It helps because you truly understand how certain parts of that lore fit in the storyline. Don't get me wrong, the author does a wonderful job of explaining much the magic and fantastical lore within that universe. It's soooo good! Another thing I enjoyed was the dynamic between Adam, his mother and his brother. The tension and unspoken pain was palpable. The book goes between Adam's perspective and his brother, Bobby. Each chapter reveals the actions of the brothers and how they got to this point emotionally. Both of them wanting to talk to each other about the past, but couldn't get past their pain. This broken family story weaved so beautifully with the story. Especially when you go on the journey with Adam. In the very first part of the book, we find out Adam Binder is gay. Throughout the book, I heard how hard it was for him to feel comfortable around his family and potential love interest. Man, don't even get me started on Vic and Adam! Forever shipping those two!

Like many of my books, I listened to the audiobook and loved listening to it! I was able to fully immerse myself in the story emotionally. What a great book! I'm so ready to hear the next one.

Be back soon!

XOXO

Sincerely,

Veronica

[talking-books-n-spice]

I know it’s been forever and I really do intend to post more Regalia City, but we’re not here for that.

I just need to holler about this book I’m listening to:

WHITE TRASH WARLOCK by DAVID R SLAYTON

First off it was free on Audible’s catalogue, not sure if it still is. But do yourself a favour and look into it.

I have been thoroughly engaged almost from the get go. When I read the blurb I liked the general idea, but the content itself is just beyond expectation.

No spoilers!

But if you like urban fantasy, LGBTQ romance, and stacked mysteries, I cannot recommend this book hard enough!

I’ve honestly never looked into queer romance before, just due to not thinking I can relate as a reader, especially with the main character being male. And I have been proven wrong in that thinking. I am getting just as many fuzzy, cute feelings and absolute heartache over this man’s romance rollercoaster as I would with a straight female character’s.

The layered mysteries (with the main one having a super unsettling antagonist) have me sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for the next big drop of discovery.

If there is another book, I am hunting it down. In general I may just go looking into all of David’s work now.

So if you’re looking for something new to try, I highly suggest this one.