A wonderful and terrifying series by a new writer about a young boy training to be an exorcist. Thomas Ward is the seventh son of a seventh son and has been apprenticed to the local Spook. The job is hard, the Spook is distant and many apprentices have falled before Thomas. Somehow Thomas must learn how to exorcise ghosts, contain witches and bind boggarts. But when he is tricked into freeing Mother Malkin, the most evil witch in the County, the horror begins..
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
" This thrilling and terrifying book should not be read after dark! - Parent: News An absorbing tale with scary scenarios and a great central relationship between Thomas and his master. - Funday Times Zounds! Delaney delights us with the power of his spooken words. Thought-provoking fantasy... A ruse by any other name would smell as sweet. - Bournemouth Daily Echo Teenage readers looking instead for total fantasy should hasten to Joseph Delaney's The Spook's Apprentice (Bodley Head, [pound]8.99). Clad in a sinister brown cover, this terrific novel is as black as David Wyatt's ingenious ink drawings that head each chapter.. Young Thomas can only just cope with these demons; the horrors he faces are made more credible by the cleverly laid-back way in which his story is told. - The Independent"
About the Author
Joseph Delaney is an English teacher living in Lancashire. He has three children and six grandchildren and is a wonderful public speaker available for conference, library and bookshop events. His home is in the middle of Boggart territory and his village has a boggart called The Hall Knocker, which was laid to rest under the step of a house near the church. Believe it or not, the haunted house in The Spook's Apprentice is based on fact! As a child, Joseph lived in a similar house in Preston where he had a recurrent nightmare. In the dream he'd be sitting on a carpet in the front room whilst his mother was knitting. Then, everything would become cold and a shadow-thing would come up from the coal cellar, pick him up and carry him back towards the dark. What's even more spooky... his brothers had the same nightmare! Joe Delaney is an English teacher living in Lancashire. He has three children and six grandchildren and is a wonderful public speaker available for conference, library and bookshop events. His home is in the middle of
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More About the Author
Joseph Delaney formerly taught media and film studies at a high school in Blackpool, England. He lives with his family in Lancashire, in the middle of boggart territory.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Spooky'ness!,
By
This review is from: Spook's Apprentice (No.1) (Paperback)
"The Spook's Apprentice", and the sequel "The Spook's Curse" are excellent entertainment! They are in fact quite scary, so I wouldn't recommend them to kids that are too young (personally I'd say 11+) or prone to nightmares.The main character Thomas Ward is both credible and very human! The storytelling flows well, and you are quickly caught up in the story. The County comes alive before you, as you partake in Thomas' journey towards becoming a Spook - the medival equivalent of Ghostbusters :-) Only this is far more gloomy and sinister. There's also humor and suspense in these books, and even as an adult i read them both in 4 days, and I'm now annoyed that the third book won't be out before April! The series has a very interesting take on good and evil - you choose your own path, and if you try hard enough, maybe you can direct the people you care about away from the dark side. There are also some interesting points on dealing with fear, narrowminded people and well.. boggarts, whitches and ghosts! I like the fact that apart from a few villains, things in these books are "grey-shaded". Good witches exist (benign), and the Spook has a pet boggart that cooks, cleans and protects the household. The "good guys" have faults and make bad choices. So order the books, wait for a stormy night, make a huge amount of coffee or hot chocolate, and crawl under the covers and be spooked! (in the best sense of the word:-)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Series; read the volumes in order, if you can,
By Pop Bop (Denver, Colorado United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Spook's Apprentice (No.1) (Paperback)
This is not "high fantasy" with world building, heroic characters, and profound quests. At least not in the early volumes. The County Spook deals with the mundane tasks of keeping witches and boggarts and the like in line. There are creatures and spirits and practitioners of the black arts out there, and sometimes they misbehave or leave their territory and have to be trapped, relocated or dispatched. It's sort of like being an officer of the Department of Wildlife, spooky division.The main characters are the Spook, Thomas his new apprentice, and Alice, the young witch with the pointy shoes who could go either good or bad, but who is also a budding love interest for our young apprentice. The Spook has a fair-but-firm grumpy vibe that suits the story. Thomas is bright, honest, loyal and prone to youthful error. He is an insightful and trustworthy narrator, and a good fit as the hero the reader can identify with. Alice is well above the normal girl/sidekick. She is shrewder than Thomas, and more mature. She knows more about witchcraft. As the series develops she will become a more and more important character. (The best part of this is that Alice is a fine protagonist for girls to identify with, and she is certainly a character who holds her own with the Spook and Thomas.) The book is unique because it tries to present a sense of the work-a-day world of spook busting. Thomas has to learn about the habits of creatures, how to trap and hold them, how to be a spook. He practices skills, digs pits and traps, and generally lives the life of an apprentice. He does a lot of bag carrying as the Spook moves from job to job. While it's fantasy of course, it feels like an introduction to an authentic life. The larger appeal of the book, and the whole series, is that as time passes the Spook becomes a fully realized character. Thomas begins to grow up. Alice becomes a much more intriguing force. The series is involving from this character development point of view, and the odd blend of spirited fantasy and matter-of-factness creates a really compelling narrative. Definitely worth consideration.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great start to a great series,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Spook's Apprentice (No.1) (Paperback)
Good book, great series. A well written 13 year old's point of veiw on things. The adventures a spook go on are endless, very creepy and growing as a person is taught along the way.
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