Customer Reviews

The Last Apprentice: A Coven of Witches

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Just when I think Joseph Delaney's Last Apprentice stories can't get any scarier, he comes back and frightens me even more! A Coven of Witches is Delaney's second volume of short stories involving the characters that we see in the ongoing saga of the Spook's Apprentice Tom Ward. Teasing us with another intermediary volume of mini tales of terror that will scare the breath out of you, this book offers up some pretty gruesome, gross and gory vignettes starring the many witches of Pendle and Chipenden that we have met previously in the other seven installments.

This volume may be short of pages but is certainly filled to the brim with well penned horrifying adventures and vividly drawn illustrations certain to keep the chills and thrills of Apprentice fans begging for more! Bringing up past characters and accounts we've already been introduced to, we learn how John Gregory meets his love, the witch Meg Skelton and her evil feral sister Marcia. We'll watch how our adorable pointed toed witch girlfriend of Tom Ward, Alice Dean, gets her early dark arts training from aunt Bony Lizzie. Many witches of the Malkin, Mouldheel and Pendle clans will drip blood across these pages as they haunt, slay, slice and dice their prey, wreaking havoc across the English countryside giving the Spook and his Apprentice a run for their money. Headless witches, swamp witches, screaming banshees, child stealing, malevolent, and blood thirsty necromancers that rise up from the dead, will all have the reader jumping at those things that go bump in the night if they're turning these blood curdling pages in the dark by candlelight!

I'm 53 years old and The Last Apprentice teen horror series has never yet disappointed me or failed to give me 100% chilling entertainment. I love this series and really can't wait for the next book that will return us to the main agenda where Tom Ward and John Gregory have the feared Fiend unfortunately unleashed at last, threatening to consume all of mankind. Sensational read as usual, and a series no horror love should miss!

The Last Apprentice series is full of witches -- good ones, bad ones, and horrifying ones. So unsurprisingly "The Last Apprentice: A Coven of Witches" is all about various witches in this series, ranging from a vampirelike dead witch to Grimalkin herself. Joseph Delaney's stories are solid, but be forewarned: one of these stories has been released in another book.

"Meg Skelton" takes us back to when Gregory was a young man: he fell in love with a beautiful young woman that he rescued from a monster -- only to find that she was a lamia witch. Though he tried to live peacefully with Meg, her feral sister Marcia and the suspicious townspeople ultimately made it impossible. "Dirty Dora" tells us of a grotesque undead witch who returns after death to visit revenge on the men who killed her.

"Grimalkin's Tale" tells how the fiery young assassin became the Witch Assassin, and why she wants to kill the Fiend. "Alice and the Brain-Guzzler" tells of the first week of Alice Dean's apprenticeship, and how she became the target of a deadly familiar who's eyeing her as his next victim. Finally, Tom encounters the "The Banshee Witch," a mysterious woman with a terrible cry who is far more than what she appears...

I'm 99% sure that "Grimalkin's Tale" was already released in another one of Joseph Delaney's short story collections, and that the big drawback to this collection. Well, that and the fact that there's no real ending to Gregory's doomed love story -- Delaney doesn't really explain what happened to Meg and Marcia after Gregory returned.

But the rest of it is pretty good stuff -- Delaney explores some of the backstories of the supporting cast, and includes a story about Tom's apprenticeship with Arkwright. His writing also varies from story to story, from the grotesque descriptions of graveyard dirt and moldy leaves to the swampy battles with a serpentine worme. As for the "brain-guzzler," that's just horrendous.

It also provides some interesting revelations about the characters. We see the horrors that drove Grimalkin to become a witch assassin, the toxic atmosphere that Alice learned witchcraft in, and some details about Gregory's naive youth. Dirty Dora is also explored in detail, but she's such a sly malicious old hag (and a sort of vampire!) that you can't really feel sorry for her.

"The Last Apprentice: A Coven of Witches" is all about the witchy horrors and some truly terrible magic -- I just wish Delaney had told us what happened to Meg and Marcia.

I read this entire series in a flash and have absolutely LOVED it. I left this book until last because I'd heard it wasn't really a part of the full series...just some "additional backstory" on some of the characters. That's not entirely true.

While the backstories of Meg and even Alice can be read after all the other books with no problem....it's the LAST story in this book that is integral to the plot of Book 7 Rise of the Huntress. There were elements of that book that I didn't quite understand. I thought I might have missed a few details in Book 6 because some of the details in "Huntress" didn't match up with where Book 6 had left off.

Now that I read A Coven of Witches, the plot of Book 7 (especially the beginning chapters) make more sense. It's the last story in A Coven of Witches that is important to read BEFORE going into Book 7. That's why I call it Book 6.5.

I loved having the backstories on Meg and especially Alice. I wish the book were a bit bigger and that Delaney had included the stories of other prominent witches of the series like Lamia and Wurmalde.

I have read the entire series of books on "The Last Apprentice" and I have found all of them impossible to put down. They are exciting and constantly thrilling. A "Coven of Witches" is a great book and I finished it in two days. Great Book! Joseph Delaney is a great writer.
I would recommend this book to anyone.
Vic Meadows

last year I picked up all the books and I read them all. Now I've been away from the series for a while, but the main thing is it stayed with me. It has the lingering affect of what a true author is about, it impacts the reader as he feels for the two main characters.

Now the funny thing is I haven't read this book just yet since I have a pile of books to read. Just over a thousand books which will take some time to read. Anyway, I find that Joe is one of those authors that have a great understanding of what to do next.

I loved the other short story book and I'm sure I'll enjoy this as well. All of them are intense, and are wonderful to read.

The Madness of Avlon Klynn

This is another set of four short stories set in the The Last Apprentice world all featuring witches.

Overall a pretty decent set of stories. Alice and the Brain Guzzler and The Banshee Witch make the book worth buying, if you are really set on having the whole series. I personally just got this one from the library to read. The writing is the same style as all the previous books; I enjoyed it. The stories Dirty Dora and Meg Skeleton didn't add a lot to the series for me, but they were okay reads.

- Meg Skeleton: Fills in the story of how the Spook met Meg and details the events that happened with Meg and her sister that lead to their imprisonment. Most of this you already know if you are reading the series, but it was nice to have this subplot filled out.

- Dirty Dora: gives some insight into how dead witches become dead witches. This was an okay story but nothing too exciting.

- Alice and the Brain Guzzler: This story tells how Alice ended up learning some of the witch art. Basically it is what happened to her after her parents died and she ended up living with Bony Lizzie. This was probably the best story of the bunch, it gives a lot of insight into Alice's character.

- The Banshee Witch: Tells of the banshee witch that Tom Ward fought with when he was apprenticed with Bill Arkwright. This was my second favorite story of the bunch. It was nice to hear more about Tom's apprenticeship with Arkwright.

Basically this book is just filler as we want for the next book "The Huntress Rises" which is supposed to come out in August 2010. It's a good read and adds some depth to a couple of the characters, so I would recommend reading this book if you are a fan of the series.

An excellent book. A great intermediate book to read while waiting for the next book in the series.

My copy doesn't have a duplicate story. It has (1) Meg Skelton (2) Dirty Dora (3) Alice and the Brain Guzzler (4) The Banshee Witch. Maybe the publisher should make it stand out with the title or cover that it's not the next book in the story to reduce complaints. But I did enjoy the stories. I love that he is able to go back in the storyline and give us some more information, ("in between" stories). I hope he continues to publish shorts and publish longs and to keep writing. I love entering this dark little world.

I'm a parent and I read all the books my children read. In doing so, I've actually become a big fan of some of several book series (especially this one). I really like the Last Apprentice books. All the stories have been great. That being said, however, the Coven Of Witches book was just not what I expected. It was pretty good for what it was (another collections of shorts giving background on the characters). But I think everyone expected this to be the next full story in the series. In my opinion, this book should not have been published as a separate book. I liked the previous book of the same concept (Spook's Tale), but thought it was a little thin. So I think these stories should have been in the Spook's Tale, since the Spook's Tale was also just a collections of shorts giving background on the series. Regardless of that, I'm glad I have the book because you do get more information on the characters ... but having had the expectation that this was going to be the next full story, it was a big let down.

Great short stories, left me wanting more. I can't wait for Rise of the Huntress!