Customer Reviews

Spook's Apprentice (Wardstone Chronicles)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"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:-)

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.

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.

For all of us 11 and older who love fantasy, this is a delightful book. Delaney has created great characters from Spook and Thomas, to Thomas' family and other characters, good and bad. I want to know how one gets a house boggart. The back of the book states "Warning: Not to be Read After Dark." It's not quite that bad for adults but may make children cautious of mirrors. I very much enjoyed this book and look forward to the 2nd and 3rd books

Really good story, loved the characters. Would put it on par with the Harry Potter books for not wanting to put it down.

Delaney doesn't over do it with too many complicated plot lines involving lots of characters whose names you cant remember. This book was perfect for my 12 year old, he's continued on with the series, though he did say at times the book was a bit scary - something I didn't catch when I read it. I thought the story was a little better than Lightning Thief or Eric Rex, for comparison sake.
I bought the English version off of Amazon.uk, I like the physical product (cover, etc.) better than what I had seen in the book store.

Tom is the seventh son of a seventh son and left handed. His mother has unique abilities with the dark side. It's time for Tom to leave home and begin his job in life. His mother has chosen him to be the Spook's apprentice. This is a lonely life filled with dangers of the evil kind. Tom soon finds out the Spook has had many apprentices that didn't work out. In his studies he meets Alice a young witch. He'll learn to trust his instincts and not everyone is as they seem on first impression. After making a terrible promise to Alice an evil is let loose and Tom must make it right and will endanger his family in the process.

This is a good book about a boy trying to find his way in the lonely life of a Spook. It's definitely dark and I'm sure scary to the younger crowd. I look forward to reading the next book in the series. This is the same series as the American version of the Last Apprentice.

A very good book! Well put together and has great characters and setting/plot. Exciting, scary and thrilling; recomended A++++.

This book is really great and it is kinda freaky but its a real page turner. Once you start you wont be able to stop. It's about Thomas J Ward and his apperticeship with the county spook. I would like a house boggart.