Book Review - Revenge of the Witch (The Last Apprentice / Wardstone Chronicles, #1)

Revenge of the Witch by Joseph Delaney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this book. The main character is clear, believable, and easy to understand. He makes mistakes, but learns from them, and his mistakes are consistent with his personality.

The most interesting thing about this book are the social dynamics in a society where both men and women wield and practice magic. In this world, males that wield magic are called spooks, and women that wield magic are called witches. And there are three kinds of witches but only one kind of spook.

The spooks are portrayed as magic wardens or dark knights. Nobody likes them, but everybody relies on them to deal with unnatural things that sometimes plague communities.

The three kinds of witches include: benevolent witches, malevolent witches, and the ones in between. Even though spooks serve the role of protectors, since they harm people sometime, particularly witches, they seem to have a lot in common with the third kind of witch.

Throughout the entire story, which is written from the point of view of a boy who becomes an apprentice to a spook, I kept switching back and forth between judging these social dynamics and old world nostalgia, and a clever twist on those social mores. I remained undecided until the end. Which is one of the main reasons why I plan to read the next story.

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