The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch (Book 1)

This series has been one of my absolute favorites since middle school; I am purchasing the whole collection to re-read as I don't think I will ever get tired of reading it!

I love this entire series and always try to read it around Halloween time. Perfect for teens and young adults. Great storyline and building of characters. Twists and turns you did not see coming.

I can't get over how much I loved this book. I'm 35. I'm a teacher. I'm busy. I made time to read this book like you make time to eat. Two obsessive days. I carried the story with me when I was away from it. There's an anti-establishment edge to it that I love. It's earthy and pagan and scary. Every single chapter takes your breath away. I guarantee you won't be able to put your bookmark in the middle of a chapter. Man! This is well-crafted stuff. I read a lot. Of everything. This is the best thing I've read in a long time. Hands down. I confess: I borrowed the copy I just finished reading from the library. I'm writing this review five minutes after I purchased it today (we need to encourage Delaney's publisher to keep paying him). It's a book I'm going to share with my kids and friends (as long as they promise to give it back...) More, please, Mr. Delaney. (Write faster!)

Since there is really no more room on the farm, he's been hired as the apprentice of "Spook" the local 'magical cop. His apprenticeship doesn't start out well. Spook locks him in a haunted cellar for the night. The next day, despite Spook's warnings, he accepts help from a girl with pointed shoes named Alice. Alice, it turns out, is a younger member of a family of witches. In return for her help, Tom has to feed a witch entrapped in a pit. He discovers too late that the witch, Mother Malkin, is using the cakes he has been feeding her to escape. Can he save the countryside from Mother Malkin? Can he trust in Alice's help? Can he go home again? Can he even survive his apprenticeship? All these, and a few more questions are answered in "The Last Apprentice" a very spooky tale that will keep you turning pages til the end and wishing for more.

Hard to believe but it's almost here - the spookiest night of the year, Halloween. It's a night for ghost stories and all manner of frightening tales. Put "The Last Apprentice" at the top of your list. Young listeners in grades 5 through 8 will easily relate to Thomas and shiver as he tells his chilling story. He lived in England many, many years ago when Old Gregory was in charge of ridding the villages of devil's disciples and other forms of evil. Well, that is a taxing job and poor Gregory is weary, on his last legs, so to speak. Someone has to take over for him but who? Several aspiring apprentices have come forward but none withstood the test of battling the trials and tribulations that beset the populace. Some of these lads were so afraid that they ran away; others, sorry to say, did not live. Now, there is Thomas Ward. He's the only one left, the only hope for the plagued villagers. It's difficult to differentiate between a kind witch and a deadly one, the most venomous of all being Mother Malkin. But, this is something Thomas must learn - or die trying. Stage, screen and television actor Christopher Evan Welch gives a properly pulse pounding reading of this horror filled tale as bodies emerge from the earth and a witch meets a particularly gruesome demise. - Gail Cooke

A very good book! Well put together and has great characters and setting/plot. Exciting, scary and thrilling; recomended A++++.