The Spook's Stories: Witches by Joseph Delaney

The Spook's Stories: Witches by Joseph Delaney
Buy The Spook's Stories: Witches by Joseph Delaney at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Teens
Reviewer: Stefan Bachmann
Summary: A collection of tales from the dark and devilish universe of the popular Wardstone Chronicles. They're engaging and well-written but terribly gruesome, so you might want to ignore recommendations saying they're for nine-and-up.
Buy? Maybe	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 272	Date: October 2009
Publisher: Bodley Head Children's Books
ISBN: 978-0370329963
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'Warning: Not to be read after dark,' are the only words on the back of The Spook's Stories, and on the inside flap, 'The Times' warns us that this book is 'seriously scary'...

The whole thing kicks-off relatively tamely, though, with a story about a young Spook (a sort of monster-hunter) who falls in love with a witch and is forced to bear the consequences when the witch's sister comes to stay and exhibits a taste for the neighbor-children.

Yes, compared to the rest of the stories that is tame. The second one ratchets up the gore-level considerably. It's told in the disturbingly cruel voice of a dead witch, who goes about remembering tidbits from her past life, losing limbs of various sorts, and threatening to murder the family of an impoverished farmer.

The third is the weakest plot-wise, delivering back-story for the witch assassin, Grimalkin, a major adversary in some of the other Spook adventures. The fourth is a creepy little tale recounting the fight between Alice (another major character from the series) and the Familiar of the witch she's indentured to. And the last is simply the best. It's about a wealthy family who are certain they are about to die after spotting a banshee wringing out her blood-stained shroud beside their pond. The tale's structure harks back to that of the classic ghost-story. It's quiet, restrained, not just throwing buckets of offal at the reader. Ironically, it's the most frightening of the bunch.

That one is the exception, though. In general, The Spook's Stories is not so much scary as it is revolting. But Amazon.com recommends it for nine-and-up so it can't be too bad, right? Hmm... Well, it seems 'bad' no longer exists in children's publishing. There's hardly a difference between certain books for teens and books for adults, and the line between kid-lit and YA is also blurring from what I can tell from the in-books my friends read. So evidently anything goes. Still, I think the violence in here is pushing it. Maybe it's the fact that there's no humour, dark or otherwise, to take the edge of the grimness. When someone dies they're really-and-truly dead, and during the many descriptions of blade slicing to bone, and blood sprouting from wounds, you can practically feel the agony.

Which brings us to the point of Joseph Delaney's writing. It's vivid. Concerning the above-mentioned ickiness I'd say almost to a fault, but that's just because I don't like that sort of thing. Gore-fans will love all of it, and luckily the writing is just as evocative during bloodless bits. It's sparse and earthy, instantly engaging, and sets up the dismal atmosphere of England's moors with little more than a few well-placed adjectives.

I also liked the mythological aspect of this book, and of the Spook series in general. I adore English folklore, even though I know next-to-nothing about it, and almost all of Delaney's ideas stem from there. Mentions of the significance of banshees - how they portend death - and how witches cannot cross running water, or touch iron, I found all quite fascinating.

So overall The Spook's Stories gives horror-fans old and preferably not-so-young all they could ask for. But what really sets it a notch above some of its peers is some terrific writing, dense atmosphere, and the intriguing glimpse of English folklore it affords its readers.

I'd like to thank Bodley Head for sending a copy to the Bookbag.

If you like gory reads, Bookbag also recommends Scared To Death by Alan Gibbons, and Slawter by Darren Shan. Their titles say it all. For spookiness and subtlety, you'd be well served looking up something by Marcus Sedgwick.

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