Book Review
Title: The Spook’s Battle (The Wardstone Chronicles #4)
Author: Joseph Delaney
Genre: YA/Paranormal/Fantasy
Rating: *****
Review: So as I mentioned in my previous review; Night of the Soulstealer, I am switching to the UK titles and covers as they are easier for me to use than the US ones. If you would like to review the previous 3 reviews, search for The Last Apprentice. The Spook’s Battle is the fourth book in the Wardstone Chronicles and I can’t wait for these series to get going in earnest now because we have been introduced to all our main characters, we’ve seen their relationships develop especially between Alice and Tom, and also between Tom and Mr. Gregory who we know is going to be leaving the series soon as his health and age are causing his strength to fail. This is also the first book in the series where I will be listening to the audiobook as well as reading along with the physical copy. The opening of the Spook’s Battle was interesting, we see Tom and Alice training in preparation for their trip to Pendle. This trip is going to be their most dangerous yet as Pendle is a place where witches live and there are 3 main clans there, who previously cursed the Spook. Tom has now been with Mr. Gregory a year and he is know learning all about witches but Mr. Gregory tells him to be wary as there are some abilities or types of witches that he might not have encountered before, so they will have to learn as they go. Mr. Gregory is expecting a visitor so he is sending Alice and Tom back to his family farm to collect the trunks his mother left him.
As they get close to his family far, Tom is excited to see Jack, Ellie and Mary again but he is also said that his parents won’t be there but with Alice he has some comfort. This is quickly destroyed when they find the barn has burned down and the house empty but his mother’s chests are also missing, Alice can smell that witches have been there recently and thinks that they used Jack to get into his mother’s room and remove the chest, so they must have something very important inside them and the family would have been taken back to Pendle with them. The pair decide Alice should go on to Pendle as it won’t be bad if she is caught as she has family there and Tom should head back to Mr. Gregory and tell him what happened which is exactly what they do. Mr. Gregory explains that the Malkin clan and the Deane clan have joined forces and are trying to get the Mouldheel clan to join them before the witch sabbath of Lammas on the 1st of August and Mr. Gregory is scared that Jack and his family are being held there for a special reason and they set out for Pendle at once. Tom is terrified that something is going to happen to his family but he is also aware that his master wants to deal with the Pendle witches once and for all so this mission is extremely dangerous for them all.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, both Tom and Mr. Gregory have arrived in Pendle and after a brief catch up with his former apprentice turned priest Father Stocks both head out looking for information on Tom’s family leaving him with the task of cleaning up the graveyard which is where he meets Mab. Mab tells Tom that Alice as sent her as she is spellbound and needs help, Tom being the gentle soul he is agrees to go with her but he knows something isn’t right about the situation. Mab leads him to a meeting place where her twin sisters are waiting and Tom realises that this is a meeting place for a coven of witches. The girls insists on playing a game of truth or dare and Mab tries to bind Tom to her with a kiss, however, Tom remembers where Alice dug her nails into him, scarring him and binding him to her which allows him to break Man’s spell over him and he proclaims to her that he belongs to Alice and her alone. This enrages Mab, who tells him her full name is Mab Mouldheel and that she intends to make Tom hers the second she kills Alice. Tom knows that Alice must be their prisoner and rather than going back for Mr. Gregory as he is doubtful whether he had even returned and Alice’s life is on the line, he decides to go after the Mouldheel sisters alone to rescue his friend. He manages to find Alice but not before the witches uses the mirrors inform the others and there are now a pack of witches hot on their heels but luckily for them they comes across a dead witch named Maggie Malkin, a cousin of Alice’s and she sets the on the Mouldheels. However, Alice tells Tom that she learned two days ago his family was alive but they are being held in the pits underneath Malkin Tower and her family are right in the middle of whatever is going on. We have also learned that Father Stocks believes that something is driving the clans together in order to summon the Fiend, the Devil himself back to the Earth to usher in a new age of darkness.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, Tom and Alice return to Father Stock’s home where they relay all the details to Mr. Gregory but Tom deliberately omits that Alice spoke to the dead witch, Maggie because he knows his master wouldn’t approve of this and would distrust Alice even more. Alice also provides information on a seer named Tibb who say the chests that belonged to Tom’s mother and knew there was something in them they needed to get their hands on. It seems that the witches manages to open the smaller ones but can’t get into the three larger ones. Father Stocks and Mr. Gregory know there is no way they can get into Malkin Tower and rescue Tom’s family as they number only four and they don’t know how many witches are in the tower or how powerful they are, Father Stocks suggests they involve the local law enforcement who can get into the Tower as he doesn’t believe in witchcraft. Father Stocks and Tom make the short journey to Read Hall and initially meet the housekeeper Mistress Wurmalde and Tom instantly recognises her as a dark witch but he can’t say anything, even when they talk to the magistrate Tom is concerned they are being spied on in the mirror. As they make their way to Malkin Tower, Tom grows more and more anxious that news has already been passed to the witches inside and how is family is coping. They aren’t successful in gaining entry to the Tower but the magistrate is going to get an army garrison to get inside and Father Stocks and Tom return to Read Hall but Tom isn’t comfortable about returning but Father Stocks calms him. As soon as he enters his room Tom turns the mirror around so he can’t be spied on and he is determined not to sleep, this pays off as he spots a carriage leaving Read Hall and suspects that Mistress Wurmalde is inside and decides to wait to see when she returns.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, Wurmalde has given Tom one day and one night to think about her proposition to give him the keys to his mother’s trunks in exchange for the lives on his family. She tells him that Ellie lost the baby she was carrying, Mary screams with her nightmares and Jack has been driven slightly mad by entering his mother’s room possibly because he was betraying his brother in doing it. We learn that Jack had a copy of the key made which is how he was able to get into the room in the first place. Neither Tom nor Father Stocks is safe in the house as they soon learn as Wurmalde brough Tibb back with her and after feeding from Father Stock he tells Tom something about his future, a girl he will love and will betray him but ultimately die for him and I am sure this is Alice he is talking about. Tom bluffing tell Tibb he knows what is in the chest and when he demands to know what it is, he speaks words he knows to be true but they don’t belong to him and I think they belong to his mother, and he says the death of the Pendle clans lies within the trunks. It seems that Wurmalde, a former enemy of his mother’s, can’t take the keys from him they need to be given, no doubt the work of his mothers. In the daylight hours he escape to get Mr. Gregory but he isn’t there so he and Alice return to Read Hall but on the way she tells him Mab left a message for him, she will get him into Malkin Tower and help rescue his family in exchange for the keys and while he initially refuses it is Alice that points out Mab would be in as much danger as them so she would lie about being able to get them in or out undetected and that the pair of them could easily overpower her alone and he agrees. Upon returning to Read Hall, Tom enters first telling Alice to follow but when he enters Father Stock’s room he is dead with a dagger in his chest and Wurmalde has framed him as a thief and murderer. Tom sits alone in a cell as midnight approaches, the deadline Wurmalde had given and when she returns for an answer, he refuses to give up the keys. Tom knows he has sacrificed his family who are going to end up in the hands of Grimalkin, the Malkin clan’s assassin and for the first time he regrets becoming the Spook’s apprentice and weeps.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, Tom is praying that Alice and Mr. Gregory will arrive soon and rescue him and hopes that there might still be time to save his family. This doesn’t happen but the army are trying to blast their way into Malkin Tower with the aid of a cannon but work has to be stopped until the following day. Immediately the men fall asleep and a horde of witches descend upon Tom but they are led by Mab who has Alice with her, she frees him so they can bargain so for the trunks, Tom has no intention of giving them up but agrees, nonetheless. Mab lead him and Alice to the secret entrance to Malkin Tower where dead Maggie has been chained but in a brief moment, she whispers something to Alice that Tom knows will help them. As they descend both Alice and Mab sniff out something unpleasant but Tom has his staff which Alice kept hold of so at least he has a weapon that he can use against whatever it is that is guarding the tunnels beneath the Tower. After dealing with the wight that guards the passageway, the final reach the lower levels of the cells which only house ghosts and bones, moving up a level to the only other level of cells time is running out as they need the candle to get past the wight again but in the third cell Tom checks he finds Mary and Ellie. Now together Tom knows the danger he has put his family in but he can’t dwell on it for long as Jack needs to be carried as he is unresponsive. They think about taking him into the tunnels but Mab scryed their journey and knows if they stay put the soldiers will breach the castle causing the witches to flee through the tunnel. She also knows two are going to come back, she and Alice swiftly deal with them and they are free to go above to get out of the Tower but Mab leads them first to the room where Tom’s trunks are held.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, Tom realises a little too late that he has been played by Mab who has seen what was going to happen and used it all to her advantage. As she threatens Mary’s life, Tom has no choice to hand over the keys but when Mab tries to use them, they won’t open the trunks. Inside on of the books there is a letter addressed to Tom from his mother, the letter tells him that inside the two trunks are her sisters who can only be awakened by the light of the moon by his own hand. Tom tells Mab that they need to be opened under the moon but leaves out what is inside and very quickly the two lamia witches awaken and set themselves upon the Mouldheels but leave Tom alone as he shares their blood. Mab swears that she is going to join Wurmalde now to help raise the Devil and then she is going to send him after Tom and he knows he has possibly put everyone in the County in danger. While the lamias as awake Tom has very little to do with them as he doesn’t want to face the fact he is half witch just yet and he also wonders where Mr. Gregory is as he still hasn’t arrived. Alone in the Tower apart from his aunts, Tom isn’t sure what to do but the following day Alice, Mr. Gregory and his brother James arrive at the Tower and they begins to put a plan in place to deal with the witches especially Wurmalde as she seems to be the one leading everything. However, as Alice and the Spook sleep, Tom and James talk and Tom reads from one of his mother diaries that James opened to the page that describes his birth and his mothers prediction that he would become a blacksmith, which he did. James tells Tom he is going to move home to support Jack and Ellie as his mother asked him to do at their father’s funeral and Tom begins to wonder whether his mother had seen all this before they were even born and he thinks that somehow she is still helping them from afar. However, Tom doesn’t tell anyone that his mother’s letter told him that the Fiend would take flesh once more meaning despite their plan they are going to fail in stopping the Lammas ritual the witches are planning and that the County will be plunged into darkness.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, James sets out to collect the villagers ready to help them stop the witches while Tom and his Master set out to deal with Wurmalde but not before Tom and Alice retrieve his family returning them to the safety of the Tower. Alice is left behind with the lamias in order to defend the Tower in their absence. As the head to Read Hall something isn’t right, inside they find the magistrate dead and Tibb in the cellar. Tibb is dying anyway and he tells Tom that Wurmalde has abandoned him and that she will raise the Fiend and he will serve her for only two days to complete her mission of killing Tom before he strikes out on his own path. He tells Tom of his mother how she once belonged to the dark and faltered which is why she was bound to the rock where his father saved her. After that she was torn between darkness and light and after failing to kill his dad she turned completely to the light but Tibb claims she has returned to it now with his father’s death and Tom refuses to believe that. Mr. Gregory makes short work of killing Tibb and they decide to return to the Tower as hunting Wurmalde down would take too much time and it would be better to go after the covens directly before Lammas. Together with 30 villagers and his brother, Tom, Mr. Gregory and Alice set off to deal with the witches butt hey are greatly outnumbered but James leads the charge into battle. Things don’t seem to be going well when the lamias arrive to help out and the witches begin to scatter. Tom and the Spook take off after Wurmalde and just when it seems she has gotten away, the lamias swoop in to save the day. With the battle over, they turn their attention to the ritual which Alice tells them has already been completed and Tom needs to get to his mother’s room as quickly as he can. He and Mr. Gregory trade staffs so Tom has the bladed ones and tells him they will come for him as soon as they can.
Tom knows his life and soul are at risk but he doesn’t know when it will be safe again, however, his master reminds him that Tibb said that the Fiend will only do the witches bidding for two days and if he can survive that he should be relatively safe. Tom takes off without a backward glance towards the haven his mother left him knowing that very soon the Fiend will be on his tail. In the room time seems to stop as the Fiend terrorises Tom trying to get him to leave the room and when all hope seems lost, Father Stocks appears to him and he manages to send him into the light, giving Tom hope. The moment hope returns the spell binding him is broken and he knows the two days have passed and it is safe to leave the room. Just beyond the farmhouse Alice and the Spook are waiting for him and they decide to stay at the farmhouse for a few days fixing it up while they wait for Tom’s family to arrive. That day Tom turned 14 and sitting with Alice he remembers Tibb’s prediction and he isn’t sure whether it referred to Mab or Alice but he decides not to say anything about it. However, he does ask Alice about her brand and she explains that other witches can’t control him because she has already marked him but she can’t use it to completely control him as he has his own free will and for the first time in a while Tom is happy as he holds her hand. In the end, we get some more insight as the war in the south is forcing young men into the army and Mr. Gregory is concerned that they might come for Tom but he is needed elsewhere to fight the dark, so they agree at the first sign of trouble he will be sent to train with another Spook; Arkwright temporarily. This is good as it keeps Tom safe and provides him with valuable information on how other spooks work. Overall, this was one of my favourite in the series so far and I can’t wait for Tom to face off with Grimalkin once more and I can’t wait to see the relationship between Tom and Alice develop further.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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