The Wardstone Chronicles

Apart from Harry Potter I have grown up with several other book series’. The one I am going to tell you about now is called The Wardstone Chronicles – or rather The Spooks Books. The author – Joseph Delaney, has written 10 books and there is still more to come.

The main character is Thomas Ward and he is apprenticed to John Gregory in the first book of the series. John Gregory is known as The Spook, and it is his duty is to protect the country from dark creatures such as Witches and Boggarts. To be apprenticed to a Spook you have to be a seventh son of a seventh son, as being a seventh son of a seventh son gives you certain abilities that aid you in the fight against the dark. The Spook has had twenty-nine apprentices before Tom, and he is said to be the best one so far. Some of the abilities Tom gets as a seventh son of a seventh son is being able to see and hear ghosts, masking his ‘scent’ from witches, and as well as these, Tom has certain gifts from his mother, such as being able to slow down and stop time, and also being able to smell the presence of death on someone.

It’s these quirky and different gothic features of the series that I have found so lovable, there are many characters throughout the 10 books that I adore; and as well as having such lovable characters, Joseph Delaney’s writing style is so easy to read that you can’t help but love the series. In particular, there are two characters that I love most; Alice and Tom.

Alice is a kind and lovable character, and despite her acting wrongly in the first book of the series she grows closer to Tom, and even to The Spook. She is the daughter of two witches that belong to two different clans. In the early books of the series, Alice was not yet a witch, but because she was the offspring of witches, The Spook was weary of letting Alice into Tom’s life as his best friend.

Tom is my second favourite character, next to Alice. He is probably the most moral person in the series, as he was brought up proper by his father on their farm. His lovable personality matches that of Alice and when I read the series I always think about how much he relates to me. I am not a seventh son of a seventh son, nor was I brought up proper on a farm. But I have found that he has had to overcome certain goals in his short life; much as I have.

I remember the day that my brother got the first book ‘The Spooks Apprentice’ as a birthday present; this was some ten years or so ago and ever since I have found myself constantly hung up in the series. I have not read it as much as Harry Potter, and nor are my copies of The Wardstone chronicles held together with tape, but I do love each series equally as if the worlds within them were my own.