Book Review of Revenge of the Witch (The Last Apprentice #1) by Joseph Delaney
Revenge of the Witch is the first book in the series The Last Apprentice. An alternate name for the series is Wardstone Chronicles which comes with different titles.
As the seventh son of a seventh son, Tom Ward has special abilities regarding the dark and supernatural. It also qualifies him for an apprenticeship with the Spook, a man whose job is to fight the darkness—ghosts, ghasts, boggarts, and witches. He is feared by normal folk because of what he does and the abilities needed to do it.
When the Spook arrives to meet Tom and decide whether to take him on, he agrees to a trial period after which the Spook will decide whether to instate Tom as his apprentice, and Tom will decide whether he wants to stay.
The life of a Spook isn't what Tom expected, and as he learns about ghosts, ghasts, and boggarts, he also learns about the containment of witches, both alive and dead.
The Spook warns Tom about girls with pointy shoes and to never release any contained witch.
Alice, a pretty girl with pointed shoes, couldn't cause him any trouble. Right?
This is a series I discovered about twelve years ago. I made it through book nine of thirteen, and then life tossed me into a difficult situation that upended my entire life. This resulted in all the series I was reading at the time halting partway through.
For several years, I've wanted to restart this series and continue through to the end. Now I've finally begun!
Originally, I read this series in printed copies from a different library system for a county we no longer live in. Our county library system only has a handful of the books in printed copies, but I believe all of them are in electronic form, either ebooks or audiobooks. So, I dove into an audiobook copy this time.
The audiobook, now in electronic form, sounds like it was originally recorded as a series of CDs. The music denoting the end of one CD and the beginning of the next I found distracting, and it pulled me from my absorption in the story. However, I've listened to many audiobooks on CD, so I understand why this recording is structured in this way.
This series has beautiful cover art for each book. Printed copies have periodic illustrations among the text. From what I remember, it's all gorgeous line art. The shape of the hardcover copies is more square than rectangular, and the paper used made the feel of holding the book a delight.
Since this series is classified as middle-grade, not quite young adult, the books are shorter and read quicker. Whereas adult books average about twelve to thirteen hours in audio format, this novel was five hours. The shortness of the novel made finishing it faster than other books I've listened to.
The world of the County where Tom and the Spook serve the people by helping rid them of paranormal beasties is quite imaginative. It's reminiscent of rural England two hundred years ago, only with the existence of these paranormal creatures and the Spook to fight them. The world-building was good but not great. It's formed through Tom's eyes, the narrator of the novel, and while most of the time the world-building blossomed organically, the times Tom sat and took notes while the Spook gave him lessons to explain about different creatures were very reminiscent of word-dumping—basically large chunks of explanation or description that are often irritating to the reader. I understand that this was done as would make sense with story, but I think Joseph Delaney could have worked in this knowledge in a better, more interesting way.
Tom Ward as the main character was interesting, though not as layered as I would have liked. However, this is a middle-grade book, and the characters, plot, and world-building will be less complicated. From what I remember, with each book the world expands with more information, more beasties, and more layers to the characters.
For this age group, a detailed world needs expansion book by book. Series for older readers often do the same but will begin with more complex world-building, characters, and plot as a base.
So far, the Spook is mostly a flat character in this novel, though his mysteriousness teases a potential depth to his character to be revealed as the novels progress. This mysteriousness makes him interesting to the reader and a little intimidating to Tom, and likely the age group the books are meant for.
Tom's friend Alice, the girl with pointy shoes that the Spook warned about, is a fairly complex character—more so than either Tom or the Spook. It's never clear whether she is loyal to her family or against what they stand for. She acts on both sides throughout the novel and winds up causing chaos and damage, but she ends up being instrumental in defeating it. Tom's feelings about her are also complicated, but his true feelings are betrayed if a reader pays close attention to his behavior and emotions regarding Alice.
Alice was always my favorite character the last time I read the series, and I'm beginning to remember why. One of the things I'm looking forward to the most is getting to know her better again.
I will need to remember when writing my reviews that these are middle-grade books, and I cannot expect them to be as complex and layered as books for older readers. When compared directly to other books I've read for older readers, I would give this book a lower score. But considering the target age group and how the world of the County and the life of a Spook completely drew me in, this book gets a much higher score.
I can't wait to continue the series and immerse myself in more of the adventures of Tom Ward as he spends his next few years as the apprentice to the Spook!
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