Seventh Son by Joseph Delaney Review

Reviewed by Rhys Black

I have been reading the first two books in the Spooks series by Joseph Delaney – The Spook’s Apprentice and The Spooks Curse. These have since been turned into a major motion picture starring Ben Barnes, Julianne Moore and Jeff Bridges.

The book follows journey of Tom Ward the seventh son of a farm owner, who is also the seventh son. This makes Tom eligible to be trained to be The Spook’s apprentice. The story is told through the perspective of Tom and so we only find out the story as Tom does which makes the book a lot more exciting as you genuinely don’t know what is going to happen next to the protagonist. We pick up the story as Tom is starting to come of age and needs to choose how he is going to make his way in the world and is approached by The Spook (Old man Gregory), on the request of Tom’s mother who appears to have her own agenda. The first book follows the initial training Tom receives and starts to introduce the world he is being introduced to – which involves a constant battle between “the light” and “the dark”, where he has to not only learn about Ghasts, Ghosts, Boggarts, and Witches, but deal with them as well.

The book is very well written and really draws you into the story right from the first chapter. It didn’t take me long to finish, not because they are short books, just because the story is really engrossing and couldn’t wait to find out what happened next.

I would definitely recommend these books to anyone who is a fan of books such as Eragon, Harry Potter etc. and I know I will definitely be purchasing the following books in the series so I can keep following Tom’s journey.

Rating: 5/5

RRP: £7.99 (paperback) / £4.99 (Kindle)

Available to buy from Amazon here.