Joseph Delaney biography

Joseph Delaney is a retired English teacher living in Lancashire. His home is in the middle of Boggart territory and his village has a boggart called the Hall Knocker, which was laid to rest under the step of a house near the church.

Most of the places in the Spook's books are based on real places in Lancashire. And the inspiration behind the stories often comes from local ghost stories and legends. The Spook's Apprentice, The Spook's Curse and The Spook's Secret have all been shortlisted for the Lancashire children's Book for the Year Award. The Spook's Apprentice is the winner of both the Sefton Book Award and the Hampshire Book Award.

The Spook's Apprentice spent 7 weeks in the Best-seller charts and sold over 35,000 copies in the first few months. The Spooks series is published in 24 countries: UK, USA, France, Germany. Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Brazil, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, The Netherlands, Greece, Israel, Thailand, Turkey and Indonesia. Life Sales World Wide across all titles are over 1 million copies!

Joseph Delaney books

• The Spook's Apprentice (2004)
• The Spook's Curse (2005)
• The Spook's Secret (2006)
• The Spook's Battle (2007)
• The Spook's Mistake (2008)
• The Spook's Sacrifice (2009)
• The Spook's Nightmare (2010)

Complementary books to The Wardstone Chronicles

• The Spook's Tale (World Book Day, 2009)
• The Spook's Stories: Witches (2009)
• The Spook's Bestiary (2010)

Joseph Delaney interviews

Joseph Delaney interview with the BBC

Joseph Delaney interview right here on Fantasy Book Review

Random House interview Joseph Delaney for The Spook's Apprentice

Joseph Delaney critical acclaim

The Spook's Battle:
'. . . ideal for the reader who has outgrown Harry Potter. Be warned, these books are seriously scary . . .
Beautifully produced and consistently surprising the weird and wonderful Wardstone Chronicles are an annual treat.' Amanda Craig

The Spook's Apprentice:
'Teenage readers looking instead for total fantasy should hasten to Joseph Delaney's The Spook's Apprentice' The Independent

Praise for The Wardstone Chronicles:
"The Wardstone Chronicles remain one of the strongest ongoing series of the moment" Write Away!

Latest news: Joseph Delaney

Notable future releases in the fantasy genre
It’s always nice to have something to look forward to. The fantasy genre is fortunate in that it always has great novels appearing at regular intervals, sometimes stand-alone but often continuations of highly-rated series. The aim of this page is to list what we feel are the most eagerly-anticipated [...]

Latest reviews: Fire in the East, The Radleys and Revise the World
Here is a round-up of the latest books to be read and reviewed on Fantasy Book Review, with links to the full review itself. Coming soon: The Children of the Lost by David Whitley, Voices in the Dark by Catherine Banner and The Spook’s Nightmare by Joseph Delaney. 7.4Fire in the East by Harry Side [...]

Are you brave enough? The Spook’s Nightmare
To celebrate the publication of The Spook’s Nightmare by Joseph Delaney, Random House Children’s Books are giving the public the opportunity to read book one in the series, The Spook’s Apprentice, online for free. The first instalment is online now on www.Spooksbooks.com and you can also read it on [...]

Win the entire collection of Joseph Delaney’s Spook’s books!
*** COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED *** Congratulations to Danielle Woodman of Cornwall who will receive all the books in the Spook’s series so far It has to be one of the best prizes Fantasy Book Review has ever been lucky enough to give away. We are delighted to be able to offer, thanks to the very [...]

Read The Spook’s Apprentice online for free!
Random House Children's Books has made the first book in Joseph Delaney’s Spook's series, The Spook’s Apprentice, available for free online to mark the launch of the seventh book in the series, The Spook's Nightmare. You can read the first instalment online now at www.spooksbooks.com and will be a [...]

Spook’s author Joseph Delaney to host Waterstones Lancaster book signing
Joseph Delaney, author of the best-selling children’s fantasy series The Wardstone Chronicles, will be at Waterstones Lancaster on Monday, June 14 at 3.30pm to meet fans and sign copies of The Spook’s Nightmare, the seventh Spook’s book. In The Spook’s Nightmare, published on the 27th of May, the [...]

Sergei Bodrov Sr to direct film adaptation of The Spook’s Apprentice?
There has long been talk regarding a possible film adaptation of Joseph Delaney’s wonderful young-adult fantasy book The Spook’s Apprentice. Tim Burton and Kevin Lima have been mentioned as potential directors but all that is concrete is that the film, should it every appear, will be produced by War [...]

The 20 greatest children's books ever, according to The Telegraph
Some are time-worn classics, some more recently embraced. Lucinda Everett selects the stories that resonate with the young decade after decade. We think that it is a great list and have added some of our favourites immediately afterwards. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame Far from [...]

Harriet Wilson joins HarperCollins Children's Books
Harriet Wilson is to join HarperCollins Children's Books as Editorial Director. She will commission and develop authors and series across the fiction list with a particular focus at the younger end. Harriet Wilson began her career in children's publishing at Random House Children's Books in 2000. S [...]

Fantasy Book Review: Children’s Book of the Month
A children’s fantasy book can be anything from the toddler’s favourite The Gruffalo to a book that most older children have read, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, so our Children’s Book of the Month will always include books that cover a wide age-group. September 2010 – The Golden Acorn by Ca [...]