Joseph Delaney's adult son and his wife entered the house and right away could feel the chill of something not quite right.
Delaney, the celebrated author of the "Last Apprentice" series was in town last week on a tour in support of the sixth book in the series: "Wrath of the Bloodeye."
He stopped at McClure Middle School to terrify the entire sixth grade class with tales from his books and the real-life inspirations behind them.
Delaney looked out on the field of students in the school's assembly room and continued his tale. His son, and his wife, knowing the house was not quite right went ahead and bought the house anyway, somewhere in the rural northlands of England. Sure enough, tingling and rattling came from the wire hangers inside the closed closet. Strange sounds emanated from the cellar. One night, when the couple were upstairs in bed, the doors locked and the house quiet, there came a loud crash from below. The younger Delaney threw back the blankets and froze, waiting for more. There might be someone downstairs. They summoned up their courage and carefully descended the staircase and when they turned on the kitchen light, what they saw put cold pins and needles up and down their spines.
On the center of the floor was a cooking pot and inside that pot was a coffee cup that had been cut in half, samurai style. The other half lay at the corner of the floor.
Poltergeist? Ghosts? Ghouls in the house? Hovering over the innocent couple while they slept?
McClure's entire class of sixth graders were enthralled, as they looked at this middle-aged, salt-n-pepper bearded man retell the ghostly tale with a Northern England accent as dense at Scottish Haggis.
"I want them to be terrified," Delaney said of his readers.
The books are hot, too. The Last Apprentice series have sold more than 1.5 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 22 languages. The first installment has even been picked up by Hollywood, where Kevin Lima, who recently directed the Disney hit, "Enchanted" is currently drafting a screenplay. Students in Delaney's home of Lancashire, England, will be putting on a theatrical performance of the first book of the series, too.
Lancashire, which sits well to the north of the country just above Liverpool, is where Delaney has spent his life, writing, teaching, being a father and husband and absorbing just about every haunted, folkloric tale he could. He incorporated fragments of the tales in his series - which in England was titled "The Wardstone Chronicles, The Spooks Apprentice."
Delaney had been writing for years and had sent several manuscripts of previous fantasy themed books to publishers and was soundly rejected again and again. He wanted to be the next J.R.R. Tolkien. He made his living by being an English teacher. His wife was a letter carrier. They had three children. As his life unfolded, Delaney never let go of his dream to be published.
And when the kids grew up and left the house, when he decided to get up a little earlier each day to get some writing in, and perhaps most importantly when he got himself an agent, things changed for the better.
At first, he jokes, the agent enabled him to get rejected more efficiently. But then the agent suggested he try writing for kids. The suggestion worked.
His "Last Apprentice" series follows the life of Thomas Ward, a 13-year-old boy who lives in The County and is chosen to be the next apprentice to the community's exorcisor of boggarts, witches and assorted ghouls. There have been 29 apprentices before him who were either killed or skipped town. Thomas is the last chance.
Olivia Kasdin, 11, a sixth grader at McClure, hasn't read any of Delaney's books but said after Delaney's talk, she was going to.
"I thought (the talk) was really cool and now I really want to read it," she said. "I keep thinking of new books to read and I'm also looking forward to the movie. Kasdin has read all of the Harry Potter books (when she was in third grade), and has since handed them down to her 8-year-old sister. Since Delaney's books have been described by "London Times" editors as, "Ideal for the reader who has outgrown Harry Potter," Kasdin is the ideal audience. "It sounds kind of spooky and mysterious and I like mystery books," Kasdin added.
Delaney doesn't see any likeness in his books to J.K. Rowling's Potter. He said, foremost, that there would never be another author like Rowling. But as far as the content, he said, his plots are darker.
"And in my books," Delaney said, "boggarts are real."
Delaney made a few more stops in the Seattle area before finishing his American tour in Atlanta. He had just spent two weeks in Australia and New Zealand and after America will visit Dracula's Castle in Brasov, Romania, thought to have been lived in by Vlad Tepes, also known as Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration behind Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula."
By December, Delaney will begin the seventh book in the "Last Apprentice" series. He hasn't a clue about what the storyline will be, (he is more of a freestyle writer rather than a plotter) but knows an historical form of witch torture will be included. He said people used to put suspected witches in barrels pierced with spikes and then roll the barrel down the hill. If the woman died, she wasn't a witch. If she lived, it would confirm her witchiness, and they would execute her.
To learn more about author Joseph Delaney and his books, visit www.lastapprentice.com[[In-content Ad]]
