The Spook's Battle

 

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Still well and truly down the rabbit hole with The Wardstone Chronicles, this week I watched in despair and anxious frustration as Tom’s apprenticeship took a very serious turn, as a new darkness was unleashed upon the County.

The Spook’s Battle follows Tom and his master into Pendle, a part of the Country that is dominated by three clans of witches and one, which the Spook has been meaning to sort out for some time. Through a friend and former apprentice, the Spook learns that the clans are contemplating joining forces to bring an even greater darkness into the world: the Devil Himself. Time is against Tom, Alice, and the Spook from the start, but things take a turn for the absolute worst when the Spook’s contact is murdered and Tom is blamed. With the authorities against him, being manipulated by the very witch orchestrating the clan alliance, Tom must make some difficult choices in order to save his life, his family’s lives, and his County. 

This is the book where the story becomes longer and bigger, with the world richer and the character arcs ongoing. Like Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire, The Spook’s Battle is an exciting, compelling, and sometimes seemingly hopeless game of good vs. evil, but one in which all the complications of the plot are not resolved by the final page. By the end of this book, the protagonist, the characters, the entire world has changed and there is a delicious sense of despairing curiosity that compels you to pick up the next volume and begin anew.

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That’s one thing I absolutely adore in children’s novels; that irrepressible to the point of stubborn sense of faith that everything is going to work out fine. Ok maybe not in this book, maybe not in the next, but somehow the heroes are going to defeat the dark and save the day! Even when absolutely everything is against them, that confidence that everything will turn out fine remains, and I believe that’s an important thing to instil in young people: a determination and confidence that can help get them through the minefield of life. And it comes from books! Who says they don’t teach us anything?!

Filled with action, adventure, and an exorbitant amount of suspense, The Spook’s Battle is that crucial point in a series where the plot thickens.

Author: Joseph Delaney, 2007.

Published: Bodley Head, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, Great Britain, 2007.

Chronicle: The Spook's Battle is the 4th book in Delaney's The Stoneward Chronicles series.