The Last Apprentice—or, alternately, The Spook's Apprentice or The Wardstone Chronicles, depending on where you live—is a series of dark YA fantasy books by Joseph Delaney.The series chronicles the events during the training of Thomas J. Ward under the tutelage of John Gregory, the County's local Spook, whose job is to protect the locals from the dark. And what is the dark? Every horrible, evil, going-bump-in-the-night thing you can imagine, from boggarts to witches and everything in between.The series' books currently include:
The Spook's Apprentice (Revenge of the Witch in the United States) - 2004
The Spook's Curse (Curse of the Bane) - 2005
The Spook's Secret (Night of the Soul Stealer) - 2006
The Spook's Battle (Attack of the Fiend) - 2007
The Spook's Mistake (Wrath of the Bloodeye) - 2008
The Spook's Sacrifice (Clash of the Demons) - 2009
The Spook's Nightmare (Rise of the Huntress) - 2010
The Spook's Destiny (Rage of the Fallen) - 2011
And a number of "side" books that provide further background on the characters, creatures, and settings in-universe:
The Spook's Tale (The Spook's Tale and Other Horrors) - 2009
Spook's Stories: Witches (A Coven of Witches) - 2009
The Spook's Bestiary - 2010
I Am Grimalkin (Grimalkin: The Witch Assassin) - 2011
The series is notable for running mainly on old-school European superstitions about magic, witches, demons and the like—because even though you're likely to find the books in the children's section of the bookstore, you don't want to read these to your kid at bedtime.And, certainly, they are not to be read after dark. Especially page 47!
Action Girl: You don't mess with Grimalkin. The clans' s warriors are pretty frightening in general, just like the witches who stay in the Combe.
Thorne as well, and Alice to a lesser degree.
All Witches Have Cats: Surprisingly averted. While cats are occasionally mentioned as possible familiars, we've yet to see a witch who has one.
And I Must Scream: The Spook buries witches to keep them from causing trouble. This is usually done because their spirits stick to the bones, but even live witches meet this fate. Then again, they get buried for a reason.
Badass Grandpa: John Gregory. He starts weakening in the last books, but he remains overall quite dangerous.
Back from the Dead: All witches can rise from the dead as mostly conscious zombie-like creatures, unless they're properly bound or if their heart is taken out.
Because Destiny Says So: It's safe to say that many readers have stopped bothering to keep track of how many grand prophecies people make in these books.
Black and White Morality: It starts off as this but eventually falls to Black and Grey Morality as Tom has to make larger and larger compromises with the dark to the point of selling his soul to The Fiend.
The Black/Grey becomes only stronger over time and by the end of book 7, the Spook has not only TOLD Alice to use a mirror, he basically recruited Grimalkin to help destroy the Fiend.
Blood Magic: One of the various types of powers witches can draw on. It's Mother Malkin's signature method.
Subverted because They both have a nonhuman parent.
Burn the Witch!: One of two surefire ways to permanently destroy a witch. Unfortunately, it tends to happen to good and falsely accused witches most of the time.
Even normally, it's pretty terrible, with the poverty disease, high rate of violent crime, witches, and constant threat of death at the hands of various monsters.
Deal with the Devil: If you've gotten that far in the series, this doesn't need explaining. It's pretty hard to miss.
Departmentof Redundancy Department: From book eight we get Fiend:[Alice] is trapped in the dark for eternal torment. Eternal! That means it will go on forever!
Detect Evil: The chill spooks get whenever a Denizen of the Dark is near.
Fed To Pigs: Mother Malkin shouldn't have attempted to flee through the pigpen while she was shrunk and the pigs were agitated...
Fingore: The Spook's last apprentice, Billy, dies of blood loss when his hand is trapped underground with a malicious boggart. And later, Bony Lizzie removes the thumbs from his corpse.
Freudian Trio: Alice (Id), Tom (Ego), the Spook (Superego).
Friendly Enemy: In book six, many witches, among them Grimalkin and Mab, put aside their differences and work with the spook-friendly troupe to stop the Ordeen.
Heroic BSOD: Tom and Grimalkin both undergo this after learning that the one person they love most has been killed.
Heroic Sacrifice: Tom's mother and Bill Arkwright die fighting the Ordeen and her forces.
Thorne as well. Though quite painfully it may have been a Senseless Sacrifice, as we never learn if her actions helped Grimalkin at all.
Hope Spot: Grimalkin and Thorne are convinced that the kindly healer Agnes Sowerbutts has been killed by agents of the Fiend. They learn that she is alive but in captivity, but she is tortured to death soon after and her body is unceremoniously left on the ground.
Humanoid Abomination: Abhumans are the deformed, monstrous children of the Fiend and one of his thousands of witch brides. They usually resemble normal people from a distance, but have a notable deformity (ranging from small tusks to full lycanthropy) and are always evil.
I Am Not Left-Handed: Or rather, I Am Not Right-Handed. A tactic used by the spooks fits this, where they carry their staffs with their right hand and quickly toss it to their left to deliver Critical Hit.
Language of Magic: The Old Tongue seems to be this, in a lost language version.
Magical Seventh Son: Being the seventh son of a seventh son is literally a job requirement to be a spook.
Medieval Stasis: Kind of. The County is quite backward and in some isolated places castles are still very important for warfare. Only once is any sort of gun fired in the series, and soldiers (presumably from London) are the only people shown to have muskets.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: How many times has Tom accidentally caused the Monster of the Week (or book, rather) to end up being STRONGER as a result of not following instructions?
Nothing Is Scarier: The most terrifying parts of the series, including one scene early in the first book, use this trope to great extent.
Oh Crap: You really shouldn't have given Mother Malkin those cakes, Tom.
Punch Clock Villain: Alice. While she is a witch, she does it only because she was born into that life. And she's also a victim of the ploy to get Mother Malkin's strength back.
Religion is Magic: Inverted; faith won't help you at all against the dark. In fact, priests who overestimate their holy powers tend to get in trouble when they try to do a Spook's job. On the other hand, it's specified in Book Six that some religious elements, such as the monks' songs, have some actual power (in this case, restraining the Ordin)
Screw Destiny: The Spook claims he makes his own path. For now.
Selkies and Wereseals: In the fifth book, the hero is forced to separate a beautiful selkie from her aging husband. In the series, selkies age very slowly, and are considered bad luck or are taught to be prostitutes.
Skeleton Key: Tom and Mr. Gregory have skeleton keys provided by Gregory's brother, a locksmith.
It's actually quite obvious to those who live there. Pendle, and Roughlee are real towns, Heysham is a real viallage and Preisttown is certainly supposed to be Preston, the small city which is the most populous town in the county even today. Caster is Lancaster the capital. The Wardstone, mentioned in the books' preface, is an actuall hill called Wardstone
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