The Last Apprentice - Book 1 and Book 2

I am a lover of science fiction, magic, and mystical. Before I view a movie I check to see if there is a book and read it. Most of the time the book is more interesting. I have a passion for reading. This was such a magical journey. I loved and enjoyed. I am planning on reading the rest of the books. Who should read it anyone who likes a journey into fantasy and magic

Not yet thirteen, Tom Ward knows the time is coming soon when he'll have to learn a trade. Traditionally, in farming families like the Wards, the eldest son is brought up to take over the farm, while younger sons are apprenticed to a tradesman - a blacksmith, for instance. Tom's always known he was different. As the seventh son of a seventh son, he's able to see and hear things most folks aren't - the ghastly echoes of historical atrocities on Hangman's Hill, for instance. Still, he's in a for a bit of a surprise when his father introduces him to his new master, for John Gregory, the Spook, is no ordinary man, and his trade is no ordinary trade. Gregory too is the seventh son of a seventh son, and he has devoted his life to fighting "the dark": banishing and binding ghosts, boggarts, witches, and sundry other things that go bump in the night. It's necessary but thankless work, and the life of a spook is a dangerous and lonely one. Tom isn't sure he's cut out for it, but he doesn't have much of a choice when his father turns him over to the Spook for a month's trial.

So begins "The Spook's Apprentice," the first volume of Joseph Delaney's "Wardstone Chronicles," collected here with the second volume, "The Spook's Curse," under the title "Seventh Son." (In the United States, the series is called "The Last Apprentice," and the first two books are called "Revenge of the Witch" and "Curse of the Bane"; the "Seventh Son" compilation uses the American titles.) These two books follow the first six months or so of Tom's training. The first hundred or so pages are mostly exposition and worldbuilding, but there are enough hints of what's to come to keep even reluctant readers turning the pages, and of course, Tom finds himself thrust much sooner than anyone would have expected into active battle with "the dark."

There are thirteen volumes in the Wardstone Chronicles proper (not counting short stories and supplements), and I've read only the first two, so I don't know how representative they are of the series as a whole. Each of the first two stands on its own as an entertaining novel, but with enough loose threads and unanswered questions to stir up interest in what comes next. They're written for a young audience, but they're pretty dark - about on par with the middle books of the Harry Potter series, but *far* more gruesome, so I would recommend them mostly for the later elementary grades and older.

The stories are set in a fictionalized version of the author's native Lancashire, circa (per my best estimate) the 1600s. A few reviewers have called out these novels for misogynistic and anti-Christian (or at least anti-clerical) elements, and I'll admit there were a few passages that made me wince as a Christian woman. Then again, the organized Church of the late medieval/early modern era deserves most of the scorn with which Delaney's characters regard it, and their scorn *is* reserved for hypocritical, power-abusing church authorities, not for sincere believers or for the Christian God per se. As for the accusations of misogyny, they're definitely true of the Spook, at least at this point in the series, but there's plenty of evidence that Delaney means us to understand that the Spook is *wrong*. Tom grew up in a family of all brothers, but his relationships with the few women and girls he does know are respectful and affectionate. "Never trust a woman," Gregory lectures his apprentice, and Tom speaks up angrily to defend his mother (who we realize fairly early on has extraordinary gifts of her own that may well rival the Spook's). Tom's efforts are, by turns, helped and hindered by a girl his own age, an nascent witch named Alice, who has been long acquainted with the dark but hasn't yet let it consume her completely; Tom stands up for her several times of the course of the two novels as the Spook is inclined to see her only as a threat to be eliminated. The Spook is a skilled and experienced mentor, and a wise one in many ways. He can be humorless and harsh, but there's clearly a compassionate soul somewhere beneath the imposing, enigmatic exterior. Part of the challenge for Tom as his apprentice is to sort out what to hold onto and what to resist, when to obey without question and when to think for himself, when to trust his instincts and when to doubt them. "I've come to realize that there's a very good reason for everything he does," Tom concludes of his master, but he knows - and Gregory himself admits - that he is a flawed and fallible man.

I can't say I've found the Wardstone Chronicles so far as compulsively addictive as "Harry Potter" or some of my other favorite series, but I definitely want to know what's going to happen next for young Tom. I want to know his mother's secrets, and the Spook's, which I suspect Delaney will keep dishing out in tantalizing little bits as the series progresses. I want to know what Alice will become. This two-book volume is a fast-paced, consistently entertaining, and at times genuinely chilling opening to what promises to be a gripping fantasy epic.

This was a fairly pedantic fantasy novel. I find it hard to believe that it was a best seller, although perhaps a middle grades audience would appreciate it more. A young boy is apprenticed to a Spook, a person who seeks out boggiest, witches, ghosts, and other creatures of the dark in order to keep his community safe from evil. As you can imagine, this is new territory for Thomas Ward, and much of the book is spent explaining the dangers of these various creatures.

The book was too transparent, so it lost my interest. However, if you are new to fantasy or tales of creatures from the dark, this may be a good entrance point for you.

apprenticed to the Spook, Thomas must learn to hunt down all the things that go bump in the night. most especially the truly frightening ones that steal your willpower and your life. Even the Spook isn't always strong enough to conquer what comes their way. but Thomas is a quick thinking lad, something he gets from his mother perhaps?

Not sure where the "scary" part of these books are that everyone is talking about. Read them before I suggested them to you 11 year old daughter as she is very sensitive and I did not want to suggest she read something that would give her nightmares. They have an original cast of characters and keep your interest. I am going to the library to check out the next set as now I want to know what happens as well.