An Urban Fantasy novel written by Sam Swicegood.
When well-respected corporate sorcerer Tom Lafayette is murdered, his eldest child Andy moves to Cincinnati to investigate, discovering a magical society bubbling just under the surface of the mundane world. Encountering odd characters such as an Incubus barista, a knife-happy security guard, and an enchanted espresso machine, Andy uncovers a plot to overthrow the magical society’s hierarchy.
The book is full of Lampshade Hanging and Medium Awareness, as well as a quite a few tropes that are actively subverted or outright defied.
Tropes appearing in The Wizards on Walnut Street:
- Action Girl: Killian is a security guard with an obsession with knives. She is the dedicated brawn of the group.
- The All-Concealing "I": Andy's gender (or lack thereof) is concealed throughout the book along with many of the protagonists's descriptive features. Andy is not a Featureless Protagonist, however, and has a strong personality and character development.
- All Gays are Promiscuous: Unavoidable, given the fact that Apollo is an Incubus.
- Ambiguous Gender: The main character, Andy! Andy's gender is never stated but
Word of God says that Andy is nonbinary. - Big Friendly Dog: the Moddey Dhoo is the goodest of boys.
- Book Dumb: Andy, to an extent, as a college dropout.
- Chekhov's Gun: the greek Drachma that gets passed around a little bit.
- Cool Old Guy: The Dragon of Cincinnati is well over a century old, and kicks some ass. That's why he's the Dragon.
- Crazy Catlady: Michaels, the proprietor of The Cornucopia.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Andy is certain of this, but finds no evidence to support it.
- Disappeared Dad: Tom Lafayette. after being mostly absent throughout Andy's life, he spends most of the book dead.
- Domestic Abuse: Killian and Apollo dated once, but it broke up because of her emotional and physical abuse. Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male is thankfully averted and their past situation is taken seriously and plays an impact on their interactions.
- Drives Like Crazy: the Nokken, if you let him drive himself.
- Entitled Bastard: Devin, who just oozes entitled-rich-kid sleaze.
- Everybody Is Single: But no one gets together either. Just lots of light flirting.
- Extreme Libido: Apollo, on account of his Incubus Nature.
- Fantastic Racism: In this case, there is a huge stigma against the Kobolda creatures who can't innately hide their magical identities.
- I Work Alone: Lampshaded by Grimsbane at the dinner table: "Grimsbane dines alone."
- MacGuffin: The Greek Drachma
- Men Are Strong, Women Are Pretty: Inverted: Apollo is the beauty, Killian is the brawn.
- Never Mess with Granny: The former Dragon of Cincinnati, who now appears as an old woman with lots of cats.
- Nice Mean And In Between:
- Nice: Apollo, with his mostly upbeat attitude
- Mean: Killian, as the Lovable Alpha Bitch.
- In-between: Andy, as the Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
- Prince Charming: Apollo, who is both charming and actually a Prince.
- Pronoun Trouble: Averted because throughout the entire novel, Andy is not referred to by a single pronoun at all. Word of God says Andy would be fine being referred to with "they".
- Really Gets Around: Subverted; despite being an Incubus, Apollo avoids sleeping with anyone that would make it awkward later.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The Dragon of Cincinnati who is observant but still fallible.
- The Reveal: Killian revealing herself as a Black Magister.
- Self-Deprecation: A little author humor as Andy narrates:"I considered telling him that I, too had once wanted to write a book, but had determined that writing for a living was a terrible life choice, but I decided to keep that to myself. "
- Stupid Evil: Lord Grimsbane, aka "Manny", who creates a secret evil group that seems like it is just trying to be the most stereotypical evil society that ever existed.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Magister Rathnul, who doesn't understand why Lord Grimsbane must use wands, when guns are far more effective.
