Winning Questions

Here are the questions that I selected, with difficulty, to receive a prize. Thank you to everyone that responded, they were all great and I had to find answers to some challenging questions that I hadn’t considered before.

Q. If you were in Tom’s shoes, a 12-year-old boy presented with the opportunity to become the Spook’s apprentice, would you take it? And why?
I certainly would not take it because the role of a Spook’s apprentice is far too scary and dangerous! About one third of John Gregory’s apprentices died violent deaths whilst learning their trade. Others ran away. Had I started as a spook’s apprentice it would soon have run for my life – probably just moments after John Gregory left me in the haunted house!
Angel Rey 

Q. Hello! 😁 If you were a seventh son of a seventh son and could choose any spook to be your master, who would you pick?
I would pick John Gregory because although tough and someone who will not suffer fools gladly, he is basically kind and also has an extensive knowledge of the dark and how to defeat it. He was the greatest of the County Spooks. I would like to be taught by the best!
Leonel Garcia 

Q. Hello My question : why Tom is so attached to Alice? And why John Gregory is so wary of Alice
Tom is attracted to Alice because she is physically attractive with a pretty face but also a very direct way of speaking. Nobody can push Alice around! He also has little experience of girls having been one of seven brothers and confined to the farm. She was bound to turn his head!
John Gregory is wary of Alice because she has been trained as a witch and comes from a family of Pendle witches. She is his natural enemy.
Sara

Q. Hello! If Tom in some situation should trust either his mother or Alice which one he will trust and why?
The answer to that depends upon which stage of his life Tom has reached. In the early days of his apprenticeship he would certainly have trusted his mother before Alice. Then as they became closer, after the adventure in Greece, it could be Alice. But then Alice seems to betray him and then it would be his mother again! So it depends at what point in his life we ask the question about trust.
Karma1364 (if this is you can you please get in touch with us and claim your prize!) 

Q. Hello, Mr. Delaney! Think back to your twelve or thirteen year old self, and imagine if he was given the chance to become the Spook’s apprentice. Do you think he would accept it? Why or why not?
I would have refused immediately. I had enough bad nightmares as a kid and thought of being tested in that haunted cellar would start me running for my life! I am not brave enough to become a Spook’s apprentice!
Lois Bisnar 

Q. The question I wanted to ask concerns about the Wardstone chronicles and how they lead into the Starblade trilogy. Why did you decide to give the Spook’s Revenge the ending you did? After reading the starblade books it all made sense but I was not expecting the wardstone series to end like that and it frustrated me a little. With Tom hating Alice and Tom’s master to die mid-battle without a proper way to go. I always expected his master to die in this glorious moment but we did not get to see it. I apologize if this offends you in any way but I’m a student filmmaker and one of my passion projects are to adapt the Spooks books into a series for Netflix or HBO and so I want to understand all I can about it.
I hope that one day you get your chance to adapt the Spooks books into a TV series. At the moment the film people still own the rights to the book but soon, hopefully, that will change! I suppose I was trying to be realistic about the Spook’s death and avoiding a moment of glory. But taking his life as a whole, he had many moments of glory but being the man he was would not have dwelt on them or even considered them glorious. He served the County and saving people from the dark was what he really cared about.
Jozua Bennie