A New Darkness

Delaney launches a trilogy that picks up after the events chronicled in his Last Apprentice series. With his mentor dead, 17-year-old Tom Ward has become the new Chipenden Spook, despite his incomplete training and young age, and as such he must contend with “ghosts, ghasts, boggarts, witches, and all manner of things that go bump in the night.” He’s joined by 15-year-old Jenny, who claims to be the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and who wants to be his new apprentice. While Jenny’s training begins, the two run afoul of a new threat, as the dreaded Kobalos finally make their long-awaited move into the County. Tom, Jenny, and the witch-assassin Grimalkin embark on a desperate gambit to learn more about their mysterious enemy, undertaking a perilous journey that may prove fatal. Delaney makes it easy for new readers to enter the off-kilter alternate England he’s created, one fleshed out by dark magic and strange creatures. The story drags a little in places, but it’s still a solid, suspenseful, and spooky adventure with a fiendish cliffhanger. Ages 13–up. (Sept.)