This is beautifully heartwarming and creepy book! Quite a traditional hero's journey, ticking all the boxes, but highly enjoyable and not at all cliched.

Tom is the seventh son of a seventh son and there is no place for him on the family farm. But his mother has called the Spook, Mr Gregory, and Tom has been taken on as his newest apprentice. What choice does Tom have?

In this first book of the series Tom must prove that he is up to the job. He is tested on his courage, talent for learning and showing initiative. This is a fine balance when some of the Spook's rules seem somewhat weird (don't trust girls, especially the ones wearing pointy toed shoes) yet sticking rigidly to others turns out to be the wrong thing.

Tom is scared out of his wits, trusts the wrong people, is forced to do some very nasty things due to his own mistakes and learns a great deal about the world of spooks, bogarts, witches and such like. He also finds out more than he ever knew about his own family and his place in the world. Highly recommended.