Rage of the Fallen is the 8th book in The Last Apprentice series by Joseph Delaney. Tom, the Spook's apprentice, has made a lot of enemies in his three years fighting the dark. One of his enemies, Morrigan -the goddess of witches has told him not to ever set foot in her homeland of Ireland but the war is still raging in their own country so Tom, the Spook & Alice must flee there anyways. His other very powerful enemy, the Fiend, is also still hunting him in hopes of catching him unguarded. The Spook decides that it's time to go on the offensive and bring the Fiend down so Tom joins forces with Grimalkin- the witch assassin, who trains him and helps him battle and bind the Fiend once and for all. 

 

After eight really well written books I'm starting to run out of things to say! All of them have been so good and this one was no different. The audio narrator, Evan Welsh, is just marvelous! I think it would be extremely hard to talk like a witch or demon or boggart etc. but he does it so effortlessly and he sounds just like what you'd expect a creature of the dark to sound like. If you're a fan of these type of stories, then you can't go wrong with this series. It's perfect for older kids as well as adults. 

 

*I read this for my 2016 Halloween Bingo: ~"Fall" into a Good Book~ square

 

 

This is a sequel to Revenge of the Witch. Tom is still really annoying, but Old Gregory and Alice are just as amazing, so it balances out in the end. In this book we get more of an in depth look at what the position of Spook entails. We also get a some backstory for Old Gregory and Tom's mom, which served to round out their characters a little more. The final showdown had a lot more of build up than the one in the previous book, which is why it was such a letdown for me.There's all this tension leading into the fight and then Delaney takes the easy way out.

This has been a very consistent series; all of the books have been really good. I just finished the audio version of this sixth book, Clash of the Demons, and I liked it just as much as the other ones. 

 

In this installment, Mam, Tom's mother, enlists the help of Tom, Alice, the Spook, the Pendle witches, Bill Arkwright and the assassin Grimalkin to travel to Greece to help her battle the Ordeen. Of course, the fighters of the dark are reluctant to actually join forces with their dark enemies but they agree that it's the only chance they have of successfully destroying the Ordeen.

 

In the end, a few lives are lost and Tom makes some heavy sacrifices that I'm sure he'll have to answer to the Fiend for in the near future. Overall, it was an entertaining story with all of the characters battling together. I also enjoyed the change of scenery to Greece and I'm curious to see how things play out between Tom and the Fiend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Closer to 4.5 stars than five, but I can't quite find it in myself to lower it down to four, even if I couldn't fully embrace the more theological bits in it, and I felt poor Dr Watson was perhaps left aside a little too harshly.

But other than that, this was a joy to read, and ... well, yes. It's pretty much written for me, really, having more or less everything I could want in a book. (Considering my obsession in the last few years has been another series, a rather different one, where a much older brilliant and feared detective takes a young, sharp-tongued teenage girl under his wing, as an apprentice and assistant at first but quickly becoming best friends and partners who mean the world to each other, with tantalising hints of something more being, maybe, possible in the future, I was also amused by seeking out and finding the parallels, although I doubt they're anything but coincidental.)

Anyway. Yes. This was lovely, and wonderful, and just what I needed. (The mysteries were good, too. :P Well, good enough for me, anyway.) And needless to say, I plan to read more, although I have a niggling feeling this first book will be hard to surpass.

(I do admit I'm not exactly what one could call familiar with the Sherlock Holmes canon. I've never managed to immerse myself in Conan Doyle's Sherlock books, in spite of enjoying his non-Sherlock writings, and no TV version I've attempted to watch over the years has kept my attention. This, frankly, was why I was hesitant for a long time to try this book and this series. I don't know how "canon" or "in character" this version of Sherlock Holmes is, and I can see and understand people deriding this as glorified fanfic, with Mary being not much else than a Mary Sue, but ... it worked for me, and in a literary world where capable, skilled, intelligent, educated, well-liked young male characters, orphans and otherwise, have long been accepted as normal, I have absolutely no problems accepting a similar character who happens to be a young woman instead.)

I already read this story up to the eighth book two years ago. I never followed the series and now they have new books out but I don't remember what it's about. That's why I'm re-reading it. This book is pure genius. Everything was written perfectly. I usually don't like this kind of writing style (which sounds kind of old) but it made perfect sense with this book. The narrator, Tom, is beginning his journey to become the Spook's apprentice. He still doesn't know much yet but he's a good boy and has the courage even though he's really scared. I can see that he has grown throughout this story. The descriptions in this book was also really detailed but I was never once annoyed by it. There was a good balance between dialogue and descriptions. I really connected with Tom through everything. I felt his fear, loneliness, anger, etc. Even though becoming a Spook is a hard career path, he never once backed down from the challenge. Sure, he did doubt himself sometimes, but that felt realistic and he worked through his problem.The Last Apprentice is a chilling and adventurous story about someone who deals with things that go bump in the night. After all, that is their job. And if they don't do it, who will? I absolutely recommend this to everyone.