A wonderful and terrifying series by a new writer about a young boy training to be an exorcist. Thomas Ward is the seventh son of a seventh son and has been apprenticed to the local Spook. The job is hard, the Spook is distant and many apprentices have failed before Thomas. Somehow Thomas must learn how to exorcise ghosts, contain witches and bind boggarts. But when he is tricked into freeing Mother Malkin, the most evil witch in the County, the horror begins…

As danger increases in the County, Tom is sent far north by his master to be trained by Bill Arkwright, another Spook. Arkwright lives in a haunted mill on the edge of a treacherous marsh and his training methods prove to be harsh and sometimes cruel. But he has toughened up many previous apprentices and now he must do the same for Tom and prepare him for the gravest dangers of his life. But when the Fiend sends his own daughter, the ancient powerful water witch Morwena, to destroy Tom, Arkwright makes an error of judgement and Tom finds himself facing his enemies alone. The Spook and Alice realising his danger, hasten to his aid but will even their combined strengths suffice in the face of such terrible dark power? And what is the Spook's mistake, the consequences of which might give final victory to the dark?