Things can never be the same again.

After a long journey and a hard battle, the Spook and his apprentice, Tom Ward, have returned home. But the county has been overrun by enemy soldiers. The Spook’s house is in ruins, the boggart protecting it has fled, and the malicious witches imprisoned in the gardens have escaped. Tom, Alice, and the Spook must flee, too, across the ocean to the island of Mona. And it’s on Mona that this small band fighting against the dark will face an old enemy grown terrifyingly powerful. Will they be able to vanquish an evil that crawls beneath the ground itself? And at what cost?

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Joseph Delaney is a retired English teacher living in Lancashire. He has three children and seven grandchildren and is a wonderful public speaker available for conference, library and bookshop events. His home is in the middle of Boggart territory and his village has a boggart called the Hall Knocker, which was laid to rest under the step of a house near the church. Most of the places in the Spook's books are based on real places in Lancashire. And the inspiration behind the stories often comes from local ghost stories and legends. The Spook's Apprentice, The Spook's Curse and The Spook's Secret have all been shortlisted for the Lancashire children's Book for the Year Award. The Spook's Apprentice is the winner of both the Sefton Book Award and the Hampshire Book Award.