Book Review: The Last Apprentice series by Joseph Delaney

The Last Apprentice series by Joseph Delaney is being cast for filming as we speak.  It looks like Jeff Bridges has just been cast to play The Spook.  Today, sometime TLT reviewer Chris Dahl tells you why you should be reading this series.

The Wardstone Chronicles (known as The Last Apprentice in the United States) is a dark fantasy series of books written by British author Joseph Delaney.  The series chronicles the adventures of Thomas Ward in his apprenticeship with the county “Spook.”

The “Spook”, John Gregory has been fighting the dark and evil forces that are constantly assailing the village of Chipenden and the surrounding area.  In need of an apprentice he seeks out Tom because he is the seventh son of a seventh son.  As a seventh son of a seventh son, Tom has acquired many gifts, including being able to see and hear ghosts and masking his "scent" from the long-sniffing of witches. As well as these, Tom has inherited gifts from his mother, such as being able to (although with difficulty) slow down and stop time and smell the presence of death on someone.       

The Spook mentiones a number of apprentices prior to Tom and hints that most of the unfortunate lads meet with very ghastly demises at the hands of various dark practitioners.  However, the work is never finished and evil must be vanquished.  Tom begins his apprenticeship and begins to learn the ways of battling the forces of “The Fiend.”  Along the way John and Tom fight witches, ghosts/ghasts, rippers, and many other kinds of unnatural, evil forces.

This is a great series for anyone even remotely interested in the supernatural.  The reader learns along with Tom the mythology, origin, and “species” of all sorts of eerie entities.  For a Juvenile/Young Adult series, it can be down-right creepy.  These are fun, easy reads with some great illustrations at the beginning of each chapter.  The series is nine books strong, plus a couple of companion volumes and I eagerly await any and all additions to the series.  I whole-heartedly recommened these books to everyone of every age.