Book Review
Title: The Spook’s Mistake (The Wardstone Chronicles #5)
Author: Joseph Delaney
Genre: YA/Paranormal/Fantasy
Rating: *****
Review: After the explosive events of the Spook’s Battle I couldn’t wait to jump into the 5th installment in the series. The Spook’s Battle was the first book in the series where we see how important the Spooks are and the dangers they are up against. The Fiend, the Devil itself has been set upon the County which they need to deal with, there is a war raging in the south and Tom has the threat of facing Grimalkin again in the future, I believe it’s in book nine as that is called I am Grimalkin and I can’t wait to see it. The opening of The Spook’s Mistake isn’t happy at all as Mr. Gregory and Alice are trying to keep Tom bound to the house in order to protect him and the war raging in the south isn’t helping their survival. After a trip to the village for provisions Tom is basically kidnapped by soldiers who are forcing boys into the Army and he knows he has to escape or his days as a Spook’s apprentice will be over.
After Alice rescues Tom he returns to the house where Mr. Gregory determines it is best for him to be sent to his former apprentice; Bill Arkwright for the next six months and immediately dispatches a letter. It takes over two weeks for the reply to come but Arkwright grudgingly agrees to take Tom but Alice isn’t happy about it but Mr. Gregory does loan Tom some money so he can send them a letter once a month. As the trio head off to meet Arkwright, the relationship between Alice and Tom is strained because of her casual use of dark magic in order to protect him, however, when they get to the meeting point Arkwright isn’t there and Mr. Gregory knows something beyond his control has held him up. On his first evening with Arkwright, Tom can see how different he is from his own master, unlike Mr. Gregory, Arkwright is quite cruel towards the creatures he captures and he also kills them which Mr. Gregory never does unless it is absolutely necessary. Mr. Arkwright also allows the dead to roam his own and it turns out that these are the dead of his family so I understand that. He also has some serious mood swings, he goes from being kind and informative, to cruel and threatening to beat Tom for nothing at all and I can see that this is going to cause some serious tension between the pair as they live together for the next six months.
After only three days with Arkwright, Tom has had enough of his cruel and slightly barbaric teaching methods and plans to return to his master. Along the way he is following by Tooth and Claw, Arkwright’s dogs and the man himself who gives Tom the letter his master wrote to Arkwright and tells him to make up his mind in the morning. The letter confirms the suspicions Tom was having before Mr. Gregory sent him to Arkwright, his master is worried that the Fiend might come after Tom again and he needs Tom to be stronger in case that happens. Despite Arkwright’s treatment of Mr. Gregory’s previous apprentices he sends Tom to him. The next morning Tom returns to the mill and Bill Arkwright but he explains about the two ghosts in the house that are his parents and never wants to speak of it again and while he doesn’t apologise for his behaviour he does tell Tom that he has a drinking problem and hasn’t found a way to cope without yet and to bear with him. I still don’t like Arkwright but I have a little bit more sympathy for him now. For the next few days their training seems to go well until one of their exercises goes wrong. Tom’s challenge is to outrun the dogs along one of three paths, Tom picks the most dangerous path because it is the most direct and gives him the best chance of outrunning the dogs. Along the path he sees a woman who turns out to be a water witch and tries to drag him into the water but Claw comes to his rescue. Afterwards, Arkwright rescues Tom and gets his and Claw’s wounds packed up he explains that this witch is Morwena or Bloodeye and she is extremely strong as she is the daughter of the Fiend and was most likely sent after Tom. He explains that with the finger Claw managed to remove he will be able to track her down and deal with her once and for all as she has haunted the land killing children and adults for their blood.
They visit a hermit to track down the witch but along the way Arkwright is hounded by a woman to deal with the press-gang terrorising their village. Arkwright initially refuses but the hermit only agrees to help him if he helps the village, so Arkwright, Tom and the dogs head to where the men are hiding and it turns out to be the same press-gang that tried to kidnap Tom before Alice rescued him but they manage to scare them off and despite their threats they don’t expect to see them again. Tom learns that Arkwright was in the army briefly between finishing his apprentice and becoming a fully fledged spook and he was a gunner like the men that breached Malkin Tower and seems very proud of the fact and Tom agrees that despite his flaws, Arkwright has done a lot of good. When they return to the hermit’s cave he hasn’t found the witch yet but he is close. As we cross into the second half of the novel, I was excited to see how Arkwright and Tom would track down and hunt Morwena. At midnight they set off but Arkwright had been drinking heavily and soon it is clear that he is in no fit shape to go on, so Tom continues off alone finding no signs of Morwena. However, Claw quickly runs back to where they left Arkwright only to find Tooth dead and all the signs point to Arkwright suffering the same fate. When Tom and Claw return to the Mill after contacting Alice via the mirror in the inn, Arkwright’s mother tells him that her son is still alive and he needs to save him but Tom knows this can’t be true.
Just when he decides to set out to meet his Master and Alice, Mr. Gilbert arrives on his barge with a letter stating that his master is in Caster and wants Tom to join him so he and Alice board the barge. However, this take a drastic turn very quickly, upon arriving in Caster, Tom learns that Mr. Gilbert is dead and the Fiend has taken his place. He is rendered unconscious by the Fiend and when he awakens, he is bound and there is no sign of Alice or the Fiend, there is also no sign of help from his master. Morwena tells Tom that the Fiend, her father has lured Mr. Gregory to this place and she intends to kill them both but Tom knows his master is strong and he manages to rescue both Tom and Alice along with injuring Morwena, so the trio head for Arkwright’s mill. Tom has to come clean to his master about using the mirror and Mr. Gregory isn’t pleased as that is probably how the Fiend found out Tom’s location in the first place but now they have to deal with Morwena and the Fiend as they have their sights sets on Tom and the reason for that becomes clear. Mr. Gregory tells Tom that he found out from his mother’s book that the Fiend has been hobbled or his power limited so the only way he can rule the world is by getting one of his children to kill Tom but the only one they know of is Morwena so she needs to be dealt with but there could be many others. Tom worries for Alice as she was strongly affected by the Fiend’s presence and Mr. Gregory believes that if the Fiend can’t kill Tom then he will most definitely try and convert him to the dark.
His master also tells him that he agrees with Arkwright’s mother that Bill is still alive and is going to be used as a sacrifice close to the full moon so they don’t have long to find him and rescue him before he could be dead for real this time. Once again, the trio set out but there is a strong sense of foreboding that something bad is going to happen in the final section of this novel. After visiting the hermit again they find Bill’s location but it is somewhere avoided by the locals. They decide to spend the night in the cave and set off at first light but the hermit tells Tom that he comes from a good family and will be reunited with them soon which makes him hopeful as he hasn’t seen his mother in a while but he tells Alice she comes from a bad family and will be reunited with her father, who is dead, meaning Alice will die soon. While this does get to Alice she doesn’t let it show the next day telling Tom she has found a way to possibly keep the Fiend at bay but she needs Morwena’s blood and Tom’s in order to make it work. She doesn’t get a chance to put her plan into motion though once they arrive at Belle Isle. On the edge of the forest close to Belle Isle they find the mark of Grimalkin, the witch assassin Tom had a run in with in the previous book and he is afraid she has come after him again. However, when they reach the folly on Belle Isle where Arkwright is being kept, the only way in is an underwater tunnel and Tom is the only one that can swim even if it is poorly. He swims through and gives Arkwright some herbs to bring him round but before he does, Grimalkin uses a mirror to convey a message to Tom. The message says to get out quickly as their enemies will be coming through the tunnels and she even appears in person to tell Tom that she is there for Morwena and that the Fiend is now her sworn enemies meaning for now they are on the same side, she even holds the witches off while Tom and Arkwright escape even though Arkwright isn’t aware of this.
After escaping Belle Isle, Tom comes clean to his master and he questions Tom’s loyalties as he fears he will be converted to the dark and while Tom denies this when confronted with the knowledge that his own mother once served the dark, he is extremely hurt. By the time they return to Arkwright’s mill, Alice immediately senses something is wrong and they find the hoof prints that mark that the Fiend has been their recently. He has also released the witch and skelt that Arkwright had in pits, the skelt even attacks Tom but Alice and Arkwright comes to his rescue so they decide to stick together. As they search the rest of the house Arkwright is furious when he finds the Fiend has disturbed the bones of his parents but Mr. Gregory manages to keep him calm so they decide to sleep together in the kitchen for safety. That night Morwena appears to them in her spectral form telling Arkwright that it is her father that keeps his mother bound to the Earth and he will release her if they hand over Tom but he stays strong and Mr. Gregory dispatches the image but everyone is shaken up by Morwena’s display of power, Mr. Gregory even comments that he has never encountered a witch so powerful before and she needs to be dealt with. Like his master feared the Fiend does reappear and he tampers with time making it stop, here he gives Tom a choice, join him or face his daughter on the marsh. Tom obviously refuses so he has no choice but to face Morwena especially since he isn’t just fighting for his life but the lives of Alice, Mr. Gregory and Arkwright as well.
Not along after setting out he meets Grimalkin again and despite his fear of the witch assassin, Tom believes that she is there to help him. She leaves him to a small hillock where the battle between the two of them and the water witches and Morwena will take place. As they wait for the witches arrive, Grimalkin tells Tom that she and Alice have been in contact and Alice convinced her to help Tom. She also tells Tom some of her history, it seems that there is a way witches can keep the Fiend away and it is giving him a child, Grimalkin did this but as her child was neither witch or monster the Fiend killed him so she seeks revenge but killing one of his strongest children; Morwena. She also tells Tom that she suspects that when they meet last, Tom slowed time in order to pluck her knife from the air, which indicates to me that Tom might also be a child of the Fiend which is why the Fiend seems to desperate to convert Tom to the dark. With Grimalkin’s help they kill Morwena and she tells Tom something that confirms my suspicion about Tom’s witch heritage, she tells him that witch boys come of age at 15 which Tom will be on his next birthday and she asks him to come to Pendle before Walpurgis night so she can give him a gift. This confuses Tom and the Fiends continued interest in him is scary especially when he tells Tom that Alice is his daughter and Mr. Gregory sending her away, has sent her right into his arms but it was the only way to keep her out of the pit. Sending Alice away breaks Tom’s heart especially since they share their first kiss as she leaves and her worried for her but he promised his master he wouldn’t have any contact with her despite her attempts to speak to him through the mirror.
Overall, The Spook’s Mistake was the first book in the series that almost brought me to tears but it did leave me with a lot of questions. I am wondering whether or not Tom is Grimalkin’s son, she mentioned that she gave the Fiend a son which is why he leaves her alone but just maybe the boy isn’t dead and Tom has been shown to be as fast as Grimalkin and can also bend time just like the Fiend. I have a feeling this will be answered when Tom’s mother returns home in less than two months to speak with him. Honestly, I can’t wait to get into the next book as soon as I can especially since the stakes have risen dramatically in the last two books and are only going to continue to rise.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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