The Last Apprentice: Lure of the Dead (Book 10) (Last Apprentice, 10) Paperback – Illustrated, September 3, 2013

just finished book 10 of 13 in The Last Apprentice saga. Joseph Delaney has quickly become one of my favorite authors. While the last book focused on Grimalkin, this book brings back Tom Ward and the Spook.The young apprentice faces some of his most dangerous challenges in this chapter. Each lesson learned is life threatening. Each lesson brings him closer to becoming a spook. The only way to kill the Fiend once and for all will require the acquiring of three Hero Swords. While Tom has two, the third is hidden under the Fiend's throne, deep in the Fiend's lair. Retrieving the magical weapon will not be easy! And the sacrifices that must be made have Tom Ward doubting his ability to carry out the necessary acts!Before the third Hero Sword could be retrieved, a former apprentice, Judd Brinscall knows a woman with a Spook library -- looking to sell books. Since the Spook's house was destroyed, his library decimated, the acquiring of books is essential.The dark servants of the Fiend are still after Tom Ward, and the Grimalkin. The Grimalkin carries around the Fiend's head in a sack. The servants want to reunite the head with the body so that the Fiend could rise and restore evil and darkness to the world.In the meantime, the dark servants are summoning the Siscoi --the greatest of the Old Gods of Romania, a Vampire God. The Siscoi is the Fiend's right hand, and could help capture and kill Tom Ward.Endless treachery and desperate battles ensue. Alice, Tom, Judd, the Grimalkin and the Spook have their hands full. There are dark surprises that fill every single chapter. The book was impossible to put down.It is hard to believe that I have ONLY 3 books left to read in the series.Phillip TomassoAuthor of Damn the Dead and Vaccination

Our entire family really enjoys The Last Apprentice and we read these books out loud. We enjoy the plots, the characters, and the language of the series, which has such a lovely northern England regional flavor. (E.g., the Spook calling the boy "lad." My 11-year-old daughter also loves the word "widdershins," and looked up the origins of the word "lamia.") Joseph Delaney is a great writer.That said, Lure of the Dead (Book 10) is not the strongest volume in the series. In it, the Spook and Tom are lured to Todmorden to look at some books that might be able to help replenish the Spook's now depleted library, as his house was burned to the ground and had to be rebuilt and re-stocked. Despite the fact that the town's name is in essence "Death-death-en" (German and French words for death), AND that Judd Brinscall, the Spook's ex-apprentice who leads them to Mistress Fresque's house, suspiciously claims he has some other urgent business and thus cannot accompany them the last part of the way, they blithely stumble onward. Up until this volume, the Spook and Tom Ward have gotten themselves into some pretty dire predicaments, but they never seemed stupid or naive. This was a total "babysitter going into the basement to investigate that suspicious noise" kind of moment. Predictably, many BAD THINGS happen to the two of them in this installment. While this book is a suspenseful page turner, it's a bit of a head scratcher why the two main characters behave in ways that do not seem thoroughly in keeping with their intelligence and personality as established in Books 1-9. Still, the series as a whole remains interesting, and Tom faces some very difficult choices with Alice in the near future which are outlined by his mother (in a cameo from beyond the grave) in this volume, as well as an increasing awareness that his time as an apprentice is drawing to a close and that he will soon need to take over for an aging John Gregory.

Once again Joseph Delaney takes the reader into the world of the County, the Dark and Tom Ward. Captured from the very beginning with a fresh look at old monsters including a different take on the vampire this book does not disappoint. Tom Ward is becoming not only the Spook of the County but the only person to take on the greatest of all evil, the very dark itself. He must find a way to destroy the Dark without destroying himself and the ones he loves especially his long time friend Alice. The action is strong, the story is scary and the book has you feeling a dozen eyes on you within the deep basement of an old house. It's hard to put this book down and once you start you won't. Also it was nice to see the return of a certain ginger cat that is of course not really a ginger cat.

Joseph Delaney's Wardstone Chronicles are brilliant, they offer chills, action, adventure and horror and are written in a fast paced, engrossing style. This latest installment is no different and right from the very first page you will be transported back into the Spook's world and won't leave until the very final page which will leave you desperate for the next book. Delaney again uses Tom's first person narrative to provide the reader with a thrilling, suspenseful story and the character development, as always, is of a very high quality.This time around, Tom faces perhaps his most dangerous adversary, a vampire god sent by the still weakened Fiend to kill Tom and wreak horror upon the County. Along the way there are plenty of chills and adventures and a perfect blend of horror, action and enough scary creatures to satisfy fans of the series and of horror. Secrets are revealed, questions answered and new questions posed. This is perhaps not the best of the Wardstone Chronicles, and it seems somewhat rushed and could have benefited from some deeper levels of detail in parts. However, Delaney's prose never becomes boring or repetitve and the pages go past in a blur - he needs to make them longer, the books are over way too quickly.Overall, this is an awesome and scary tenth installment and is a worthy penultimate story for Tom's side of the narrative. (there will be three more books, one more in Tom's story, another told by a mage: Spook's Tale: Slither, and the 'i am alice' that will be told through Alice's POV). If you're already a fan pick this one up now, if you're new i suggest starting from the very beginning (Spooks Apprentice) as is will offer up a journey you won't regret starting.

While Spook's Blood was a good read - with some genuinely shocking parts - it was a tad disappointing after I Am Grimalkin. Also, the series is starting to drag a little now... I started with the books when I was 11, at 21 I'm now getting a little bored that this is the first time we're given clues about The Wardstone - and disappointing clues they were too. I get the feeling that Delaney is just working his way through the creatures that are in the bestiary that Tom's not met yet. The book's focus on the strigoi/strigoica was predictable and it'll probably be easy to guess which creatures will be in the next book too. Also Tom's grey morals are starting to get darker. Thus far I've been able to see his side of the choices he's made, but that has started to change in this book...we'll just have to see if that ends up as Tom's decent to the dark or where the ends justify the means...

I've been reading these books since I was 15 years old. Now 21, I'm still enjoying them massively, and will be sad when the series finally draws to a close. It's been an excellent replacement for Harry Potter. This book has Thomas Ward facing a very powerful Old God (AGAIN?!) from Romania, and other nasty things from those lands. It's funny to think that after everything he's been through, such as fighting the Fiend, and the numerous Old God's he's faced, there are still things out there that he is totally unfamiliar with, to test him and the skills he's acquired during his apprenticeship in new and exciting ways, but Joe Delaney always manages to convincingly create new dangers for Tom and his Master take on, this time in the form of a Transylvanian vampire god called the Siscoi. I have not yet finished this book, because I'm trying to make it last, (these books are very quick reads, you could get through all 400 pages within a day very easily) but the 200 pages I've read thus far have been really great. I'm also very glad that the inconsistent cover designs seem to have stopped, and it's back to the old style. I shall have to replace the ones on my shelf that are different with the collectors editions, to satiate my need to have them all looking the same!

Depending upon your imagination level, this 10th instalment of the popular Spook's Stories is possibly the most graphic and memorable to date. Characters both good and evil are becoming more developed and the various plots from Joseph Delaney's previous novels increasingly inter-twined so that I may just have to read this one more time to make sure... Strangely addictive, perhaps one day a film-maker will come along and take on what could just be the most interesting British fantasy project since J K Rowling's Harry Potter stories. Don't read these before going to sleep... adults included.

I really loved this book. It has the perfect amount of action, sadness, mystery and suspense! I like how grimalkin was used in this book again, but was devastated at some twists and turns in the story!!! I recommend this book, but like always you have to read the others in the series first, and in order!!! Otherwise really confusing! Really great read, couldn't put it down!!!