Title: Trailer Park Trickster
Series: The Adam Binder Novels: Book Two
Author: David R. Slayton
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Length: 295 Pages
Category: Fantasy
Rating: 5 Stars
At a Glance: Trailer Park Trickster was on a short list of my most anticipated books in 2021 and is now on my Best Of list for the year. And this cliffhanger? It only means book three in the Adam Binder series has jumped to the top of my Must Read list in whatever year David R. Slayton releases it.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: They are my harvest, and I will reap them all.
Returning to Guthrie, Oklahoma, for the funeral of his mysterious and beloved aunt Sue, Adam Binder once again finds himself in the path of deadly magic when a dark druid begins to prey on members of Adam’s family. It all seems linked to the death of Adam’s father many years ago—a man who may have somehow survived as a warlock.
Watched by the police, separated from the man who may be the love of his life, compelled to seek the truth about his connection to the druid, Adam learns more about his family and its troubled history than he ever bargained for, and finally comes face-to-face with the warlock he has vowed to stop.
Meanwhile, beyond the Veil of the mortal world, Argent the Queen of Swords and Vic the Reaper undertake a dangerous journey to a secret meeting of the Council of Races . . . where the sea elves are calling for the destruction of humanity.
Review: “This was his wound, his warlock wound . . . It thrummed, resonating with something unseen, something looming. Something dark was coming.”
Growing up in Guthrie, Oklahoma, wasn’t easy for Adam Lee Binder. He was a kid who heard and saw and spoke to things not of this world and because of it, his mother and brother had him committed to a mental institution, ostensibly for his own good, but it was a hellish place only Adam could see the truth of. His time there left its share of resentments and scars, nearly as many scars as his father had left on Adam’s soul when Robert Binder Sr. took any opportunity to beat his youngest son; so routinely and so mercilessly, in fact, that one day Adam’s older brother, Bobby, murdered their dad with a hammer blow to the skull and then, with his mother’s help, buried Robert under a pile of rocks out back behind their trailer. That brand of justice very well may have come with a hefty price tag and deadly payback plan.
Adam checked himself out of the facility when he turned eighteen, and hitchhiked to the one place he hoped he’d be welcomed, his aunt Sue’s place, where he stayed until he was called to Denver to help his by-then-estranged brother with a problem only Adam had the potential to handle. Dysfunctional doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of this family’s dynamic, but all these things combined have not only made Adam who he is today, they’ve also served to bring him to the place David R. Slayton leaves him at the end of Trailer Park Trickster.
And oh my, what a cliffhanger it is too.
Lest you think the accumulation of all these experiences might have left Adam callous, hard, disaffected, let me assure you he is not. Cautious? Yes. Unobtrusive? He’s tried. Earnest? Always. Secretive? Without a doubt. Soft-hearted? Unquestionably. Adam is as kind and gentle a man as he could be, far kinder and gentler than the worlds he exists in, around, and between, that’s for sure, and I adore him to bits. The weight of his family’s dysfunction has left its share of burdens on Adam’s shoulders now, which adds stress and tension to his already broken heart when Sue dies unexpectedly. But she’s not the only family member whose life comes to an abrupt end, and unless Adam can put a stop to a dark and murderous druid—a dark and murderous druid who might or might not be his dead father, and one who is hell-bent on pruning the Binder family tree—said dark and murderous druid will only continue to grow stronger.
That Adam has been keeping secrets from his brand-new boyfriend, Vic, figures into the story and works out just about how you’d expect it to, given the nature of those secrets. They’re BIG ones, and all I can say is Slayton came after me and my emotions with a vengeance and absolutely crushed it in this continuation of the Adam Binder series. But, as if one spectacular storyline weren’t enough, readers are treated two, two spectacular storylines in Trailer Park Trickster, when Vic, who also happens to be a Reaper—yes, Death herself is the boss of him—inadvertently gets caught up in elf politics as well as a none too insignificant family drama when Argent the Queen of Swords takes Vic on a detour to the Other Side and they, along with Argent’s brother Silver the Knight of Swords just, you know, happen to save the planet and all its human garbage from complete and total annihilation.
Much to the benefit of this installment, and the series overall, we get chapters told from both Adam’s and Vic’s points of view, which kept the pace running full speed ahead into all sorts of gruesomeness and danger and mayhem and intrigue, and this also gives us the opportunity to get to know Vic much better since we didn’t get much of a chance to in White Trash Warlock (let’s just say there were extenuating circumstances). The contrasts between him and Adam and their respective families couldn’t be more blatant, and I loved the way Vic’s family played a part in the story right when he needed them the most.
White Trash Warlock was amongst a select few of the very best books I read in 2020. Trailer Park Trickster was on a short list of my most anticipated books in 2021 and is now on my Best Of list for the year. And I mentioned that cliffhanger? It only means book three in the Adam Binder series has jumped to the top of my Must Read list in whatever year David R. Slayton releases it.
You can buy Trailer Park Trickster here:
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