A review by the_fabric_of_words
Thomas Ward l'épouvanteur by Marie-Hélène Delval, Joseph Delaney
5.0
YA Review. This is not an MG series. My son and daughter both recommend it for teens / high school, due to some of the scary / frightening images and the amount of gore.
Thomas Ward was a Spook's apprentice in Chipenden, but his mentor is killed (before the book starts, in another series, so if you like this one, there's a whole other set of books to explore) and he's left to muddle on without him, learning as he goes.
But his mentor's books were destroyed in a fire, so when a creature begins attacking people from the village, he's not sure what it is or how to combat it. Compound that with a young girl, Jenny, who shows up asking to be his apprentice (not realizing he's barely able to cope as it is), and the fact that Thomas buried the Starblade, the only weapon effective against this creature, in his mentor's grave, and it's a recipe for disaster.
A witch named Grimalkin comes to help, or so Thomas and Jenny believe, but she's got an agenda of her own -- fighting the coming army of these creatures, called Kobalos, which want to wipe us out. Of course, her experiments might do the job for them, if Thomas and Jenny can't kill the creatures she sets loose.
I won't spoil the ending, just know it's gruesome in the middle and it doesn't end well for Thomas. There's not even a hint of romance between Thomas and Jenny, although both are full of angst, for their own (backstory) reasons.
Visit my blog for more great middle grade book recommendations, a few YA book recommendations, free teaching materials and fiction writing tips: http://amb.mystrikingly.com/
Thomas Ward was a Spook's apprentice in Chipenden, but his mentor is killed (before the book starts, in another series, so if you like this one, there's a whole other set of books to explore) and he's left to muddle on without him, learning as he goes.
But his mentor's books were destroyed in a fire, so when a creature begins attacking people from the village, he's not sure what it is or how to combat it. Compound that with a young girl, Jenny, who shows up asking to be his apprentice (not realizing he's barely able to cope as it is), and the fact that Thomas buried the Starblade, the only weapon effective against this creature, in his mentor's grave, and it's a recipe for disaster.
A witch named Grimalkin comes to help, or so Thomas and Jenny believe, but she's got an agenda of her own -- fighting the coming army of these creatures, called Kobalos, which want to wipe us out. Of course, her experiments might do the job for them, if Thomas and Jenny can't kill the creatures she sets loose.
I won't spoil the ending, just know it's gruesome in the middle and it doesn't end well for Thomas. There's not even a hint of romance between Thomas and Jenny, although both are full of angst, for their own (backstory) reasons.
Visit my blog for more great middle grade book recommendations, a few YA book recommendations, free teaching materials and fiction writing tips: http://amb.mystrikingly.com/