Adam Binder has to return home to a family that tolerates him rather than loves him, when his brother’s partner is assaulted by a possible magical force, and the family finds themselves in need of the protagonist black sheep. In his effort to unravel a much more complex problem than he initially thinks, Adam finds himself tied to a stranger and having no choice but to embroil his brother in the unseen world.

This sometimes gets referred to as YA in reviews, and I think that’s just from the plain, straight-forward commercial prose style that is pretty indicative of fantasy these days, because not much else signals Ya to me, other than maybe the queer inclusive romance, which sadly does seem like a staple of That genre when it should be pervasive throughout all fiction by now.

Regardless, this is pretty typical Urban Fantasy to me. Think Dresden files but with a low magic, gay, and different roots protagonist, but with very similar fantasy elements. The worldbuilding is quite quick but one of the more fun aspects. I expected his socio-economic background to come into play more so than it actually did. It’s setting material and I guess in stark contrast to some of the more powerful, “elite”? Magical creatures. But it’s didn’t feel like it was touched on all that much, possibly because there was quite a lot going on. There’s the insertion of the New Romantic interest but also another, prior one. Somewhat tropey but with so many other fantasy stories having that kind of power fantasy, I don’t begrudge it. By virtue of their being not that many stories with gay characters, it’s fresh enough. Then there’s the overarching problem that touches on his family and home life that needs to built up and divulged, on top of pacing out a plot.

It was descent in every respect, fairly typical of a debut in it being somewhat uneven, and navigated to enough interesting and cool parts that it wasn’t a chore. I’m not sure if I’d give the next a go, but it was a fun, light diversion from other reading and not a staple of my diet, though I’ve read quite a lot of fantasy in the past I am moving away from commercial fiction prose, as it just doesn’t engage me much and hampered this from fully connecting with me. I can see why so many people love it, though.

3.5 rounded up for the innovative aspects I enjoyed seeing