The Spook's Battle ~ Joseph Delaney
Book #: 3 April, 2009 to 7 April, 2009
The Spook's Battle ~ Joseph Delaney
This is book 4 in the Wardstone Chronicles and continues from where The Spook's Secret left off. I read it directly after finishing the previous book so I was already well into the story.
Spoiler alert - if you've not read this book and you want to, there are some spoilers in the following review.
This book features again the three main characters of the Spook, Tom and Alice, but this time they leave the safety of the Spook's house to go up to Pendle with the intention of finally sorting out the families of witches up there. There are three witch families/clans who are usually at each other's throats but they have now started to join forces with the intention of raising 'the dark made flesh', otherwise known as the Devil himself. As before Joseph Delaney has taken folklore from the area and used it in the book, although on this occasion, it's not so much folklore as actual history. The Pendle area is full of history of witchcraft, so it's a natural place to locate the events of this book. The three families of Malkin, Deane and Mouldheel are fictional, although Malkin Tower did exist.
I've said before about how book #4 in a long series seems to be the one with the Big Battle Where Important Stuff Happens. This was true of both Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Sir Thursday from Garth Nix's Keys To The Kingdom series. It is also true of this series too which is a rather strange but interesting occurrence. In this book, Tom and Alice do most of the work, the Spook disappears quite early on and only seems to return towards the end in time for the big battle.
I enjoyed this book as much as I'd enjoyed the others, though I did find some of it a little random. I couldn't quite understand the relevance of some of the events, such as Tom and the priest staying at the manor or why the creature had been created. That section seemed kind of superfluous to the plot somehow. The treasure that was hidden in the trunks was something I had worked out fairly early on so that wasn't much of a surprise but it was still a nice plot point. None of these things really detracted from the story, it was still an engaging read and kept me engrossed.
The ending however was a little disappointing. Tom rushes back to the special room in the house, although he can't rush that fast as he's going by foot. I do find the constant walking a little tiresome (no pun intended). Do they not have horses to ride? Surely that would have been a much better way for Tom to go back and wouldn't have made much difference to the story. Finally, he gets to the house, shuts himself up in the room and .... nothing really happens. He stays in there, time passes, he's visited by a ghost and then he comes out again. Okay, so the world has changed in the time he's been in there but it seemed a bit of a let-down. I was expecting either the battle in Pendle to avert the arrival of the Devil, or for there to be a further battle which gets rid of him but neither of these happen. This ended reminded me rather of the ending to Goblet of Fire where Voldemort is returned to life with a similar ceremony but no one knows and so life goes on. The next book in the series, The Spook's Mistake is already available so hopefully more will be revealed there.
The Spook's Battle ~ Joseph Delaney
This is book 4 in the Wardstone Chronicles and continues from where The Spook's Secret left off. I read it directly after finishing the previous book so I was already well into the story.
Spoiler alert - if you've not read this book and you want to, there are some spoilers in the following review.
This book features again the three main characters of the Spook, Tom and Alice, but this time they leave the safety of the Spook's house to go up to Pendle with the intention of finally sorting out the families of witches up there. There are three witch families/clans who are usually at each other's throats but they have now started to join forces with the intention of raising 'the dark made flesh', otherwise known as the Devil himself. As before Joseph Delaney has taken folklore from the area and used it in the book, although on this occasion, it's not so much folklore as actual history. The Pendle area is full of history of witchcraft, so it's a natural place to locate the events of this book. The three families of Malkin, Deane and Mouldheel are fictional, although Malkin Tower did exist.
I've said before about how book #4 in a long series seems to be the one with the Big Battle Where Important Stuff Happens. This was true of both Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Sir Thursday from Garth Nix's Keys To The Kingdom series. It is also true of this series too which is a rather strange but interesting occurrence. In this book, Tom and Alice do most of the work, the Spook disappears quite early on and only seems to return towards the end in time for the big battle.
I enjoyed this book as much as I'd enjoyed the others, though I did find some of it a little random. I couldn't quite understand the relevance of some of the events, such as Tom and the priest staying at the manor or why the creature had been created. That section seemed kind of superfluous to the plot somehow. The treasure that was hidden in the trunks was something I had worked out fairly early on so that wasn't much of a surprise but it was still a nice plot point. None of these things really detracted from the story, it was still an engaging read and kept me engrossed.
The ending however was a little disappointing. Tom rushes back to the special room in the house, although he can't rush that fast as he's going by foot. I do find the constant walking a little tiresome (no pun intended). Do they not have horses to ride? Surely that would have been a much better way for Tom to go back and wouldn't have made much difference to the story. Finally, he gets to the house, shuts himself up in the room and .... nothing really happens. He stays in there, time passes, he's visited by a ghost and then he comes out again. Okay, so the world has changed in the time he's been in there but it seemed a bit of a let-down. I was expecting either the battle in Pendle to avert the arrival of the Devil, or for there to be a further battle which gets rid of him but neither of these happen. This ended reminded me rather of the ending to Goblet of Fire where Voldemort is returned to life with a similar ceremony but no one knows and so life goes on. The next book in the series, The Spook's Mistake is already available so hopefully more will be revealed there.