'The Spook's Battle' Review

The Spook's Battle by Joesph Delaney

Review by Emma McGrath

Summary of the plot;

John, Alice and Tom are living happily at the summer house in Chipenden until ......Tom discovers that his remaining family have been kidnapped along with his mam's chests by Pendle witches.

After events Tom,John,Alice and an ex spook Father Stocks discover the magnitude of the situation.The three clans of witches that reside in Pendle are conspiring to summon the fiend! The Devil himself! ,The witches have corrupted the magistrate Roger Nowell making him blind to the witches intentions and the witches are intent on using the unknown content of mams chests for evil!

The dark is stronger than ever as enemy witches join forces for a communal goal!

My Thoughts;

This is my favorite book so far! the magnitude of the plot was very excited. Joesph Delaney introduced some interesting characters in this book, one being Mab Mouldheel,I thought she was a great character,she has immature quality's and gets childish when she doesn't get what she wants but on the other hand shes the head of the Mouldheel clan and so shes very powerful.her craftiness rivals Alice! which is saying something,brilliant!

Mab is a very good 'scryer' which is seeing the future.her predictions are great to mix up the chaos a bit more because there is always a threat of her sryes coming true.in the previous books Tom's Mam was telling Tom things to beware of  in the future but because she's in Greece I think Mab's a great addiction!

The witch assassin Grimalkin is a fierce character.I love her, shes a force of nature so awesome! she was talked about in curse (I think) and at the beginning of this story but she only appears at the end of this book.I thought it was really clever how Joesph Delaney kindled a great fear about her long before Tom actually saw her,there was great adrenalin when she was chasing Tom through the woods,I had a terrifying image of her at his heels with her huge scissors.I loved the scene when Tom turns and sees her for the first time;

Now i could see Grimalkin for the first time.she wore a short black smock tied at her waist but the skirt was divided and strapped tightly to each thigh to aid running.her lips were painted black and when she opened her mouth in a travesty of a smile,I saw that her teeth had been filed to points!

" your a disappointment" Grimalkin said leaning back against the trunk of the final tree and pointing her daggers downwards so that the long blades crossed against her knees.

"I've heard so much about you,and despite your youth I hoped for more" 

A bit of a confusing ending for this book.Nothing really got revealed about the friend.the ending looked bleak for tom but suddenly nothing happened ( not that i wanted him to die,there was no explanation as to what happened) it was a bit of a let down! The author did leave an impending doom for Tom at the end though. even though the ending was a let down, the future for Tom was left open for something exciting to happen in the next book.John was going to send Tom to another Spook Bill Arkwright I'm looking forward to hear about him.John mentioned that he has a different method of teaching,that will be interesting to see how Tom copes with that.

Enchanting,Thrilling Series,The plot thickens fantastic characters!

Here is the url to the Spooks website http://www.spooksbooks.com/ just in case iv interested anyone in the Series.