Clash of the Demons

A real start till the end battle, this volume truly took John Gregory, Tom, Bill Arkwright and the Alliance of witches against the Fiend(a long name, but I still have not thought of a better and shorter grouping) from their comfort zones, Goodbye dreary, rainy England, Onwards to Mrs. Ward's homeland Greece!!!

Such a treasure trove of fights, internal musings, war of principles(if you are a do-gooder, do you embrace evil or use evil ways to win, does the end really justify the means????)
Tell that to John Gregory the oldest Spook(that I have read of)who still fights the good fight and his unwavering and unswerving principle(but when it comes to female.......well we all have our shortcomings), to our embattled Tom and his beliefs, to Alice(the Fiend's daughter, yes unbelievable!!), Grimalkin the foremost Witch Assassin(the person who turned the table, from true defeat to a fighting chance, Book 5 that is.........) and finally Bill Arkwright(with the weight lifted up from his shoulders, a better Spook for me, for he gets the job done also without much dilly dallying unlike his mentor).

Finally, an adventure not in the county, nor the northern or southern part of the country. Welcome to the Greece, land of olives, the greek culture, their myths and lore, the lamia witches and their version of the Fiend, the Ordeen, a goddess from the Olden times(I wonder if she Golgoth are of the same pantheon), a blight on the Greeks, every seven years, she and her army from Ord would arrive and terrorize, slaughter and feast. The story revolves around the plan to finally end the Ordeen's reign of terror, again we see much griping from our traditionalist, the ingenuity of Mrs. Ward, her long term plans(imagine giving birth to not 3 or 4 children but 7, because the seventh son is the culmination of her plans) and the bravery of a mother, to sacrifice herself and one of her child to battle and give hope to their world.

The sixth book was truly riveting, so much ideas, nuances and finally so much death..........I will miss them, especially.........such a waste, really such a waste........but the development in both Tom and Alice's lives has finally intertwined!!!!! Onwards to Book 7!!!

This is book number 6 in the series that I've been reading aloud to Luke and the only reason it took a while to finish is that we were pretty busy doing other things like moving to Sweden for a year. You know how that is. Anyway, in this outing, the brave young Tom Ward gets recruited by his Mam to head south to Greece to fight a dangerous menace known as the Ordeen. Tom is in for some nasty surprises and some tough decisions.

Luke and I read to page 270 or so when he just couldn't wait for the next reading. I told him to go ahead and keep reading on his own but NOT to tell me what happens on pain of death. He finished the book in two days and then valiantly kept his mouth shut about the exciting conclusion and shocking developments. As luck would have it, we have the seventh book on hand and since Luke was itching to get started on it, I told him to forge ahead without me and I'd read it after he was done with it. He read about 100 pages in that one on the first day.