Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Conrad Mason

'We're the Demon's Watch, son. Protectors of Port Fayt. Scourge of all sea scum. Don't tell me you've never heard of us?' 
 
Half-goblin boy Joseph Grubb lives in Fayt, a bustling trading port where elves, trolls, fairies and humans live side by side. Fed up of working at the Legless Mermaid tavern, Grubb dreams of escape - until a whirlwind encounter with a smuggler plunges him into Fayt's criminal underworld. There he meets the Demon's Watch and learns of their mission to save the port from a mysterious and deadly threat. Can Grubb and his new allies uncover the dark plot in time, or will they end up as fish food in Harry's Shark Pit?

The Demon's Watch

Tales of Fayt, Book 1

E E Richardson

Joel Demetrius is quite looking forward to moving in with his new step-family, but as far as his sister Cassie's concerned, they're nothing but intruders. She doesn't want anything to do with Gerald and his two sons, and to make matters worse their new home is a derelict old house, neglected for decades. Joel thinks it's interesting. Cassie thinks it's a dump. 
 
But his sister isn't the only reason the house doesn't feel like a home. As fascinated as he is by the place, Joel has to admit there's something not quite right about it. Not only does he keep seeing things out of the corner of his eye, but his sleep is plagued by nightmares. He can't seem to stop dreaming about a terrified boy who keeps repeating the same fractured prayer: 
 
IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE I WAKE, I PRAY THE LORD MY SOUL TO TAKE . . . 
 
As events in the house become harder and harder to explain, it seems that the line between nightmare and reality is getting steadily more blurred. And when the battle between Cassie and her step-brothers draws everyone deeper into the mystery, all four kids are forced to confront the question of just who the intruders really are.

The Intruders

Robert Swindells

If you expect to see a ghost, you see a ghost... 
That's what Bethan tells herself when her brother Harry takes her to see the ghost at the old reservoir. But she really can see it: a pale figure floating over the water, one finger pointing downwards. 
 
Local legend says that the ghost is Hettie Daynes, an ancestor of their family, who vanished over a hundred years ago. 
 
If so, what does she want? And why is she appearing now? 
 
Harry and Bethan and their friends Rob and Alison are determined to find out! 
 
A deliciously shivery ghost tale from multi award-winning author Robert Swindells.

The Shade of Hettie Daynes

Jason Segel

Kirsten Miller

Charlie Laird has a very bad feeling. 
 
1. There’s a NEW GIRL at school, and Charlie and his friends have DEFINITELY seen her before. 
2. He’s been hearing strange noises after dark, which is NEVER a good sign. 
3. The nightmares are back, and they’re WEIRDER THAN EVER. 
 
Not since he faced his fears has Charlie had so many bad dreams. Whenever he falls asleep, he finds himself in a Netherworld field, surrounded by a flock of CREEPY BLACK SHEEP. 
 
They're not counting sheep. They refuse to jump. In fact, they don't do much at all. EVEN EERIER, THOUGH, is that it’s not Charlie’s nightmare. Somehow he’s trapped in someone else’s bad dream. And he’s pretty sure the twins ICK and INK are responsible. 
 
Charlie and his friends thought they’d put the twins out of business, but it seems they didn’t quite finish the job. Now the WOOLLY NIGHTMARES are closing in, and INK has shown up at Cypress Creek Elementary! Charlie’s convinced that INK is up to NO GOOD. And if he’s right, it could be a very long time before anyone’s dreams are sweet again.

Nightmares! The Lost Lullaby

It was just a bit of fun, a local legend. The Devil's Footsteps: thirteen stepping stones, and whichever one you stopped on in the rhyme could predict how you would die. A harmless game for kids - and nobody ever died from a game. 
 
But it's not a game to Bryan. He's seen the Dark Man, because the Dark Man took his brother five years ago. He's tried to tell himself that it was his imagination, that the Devil's Footsteps are just stones and the Dark Man didn't take Adam. But Adam's still gone. 
 
And then Bryan meets two other boys who have their own unsolved mysteries. Someone or something is after the children in the town. And it all comes back to the rhyme that every local child knows by heart: Thirteen steps to the Dark Man's door, Won't be turning back no more . . .

The Devil's Footsteps

Jonathan Stroud

Now a major Netflix series! 
 
Want to hear a ghost story? That's good. I know a few . . . 
 
After their recent adventures, the Lockwood & Co team deserve a well-earned break . . . so naturally they decide to risk their lives breaking into a heavily-guarded crypt. A building full of unsettled souls, it's also the final resting place of Marissa Fittes, the legendary and (supposedly) long-dead ghost hunter - though the team have their suspicions about just how dead she might be. 
 
What they discover changes everything. 
 
Pitched into a desperate race to get to the truth behind the country's ghost epidemic, the team ignite a final, epic battle against the Fittes agency. A battle that will force them to journey to the Other Side, and face the most terrifying enemy they have ever known. 
 
Can everyone make it out alive? 
 
Join Lucy, Lockwood, George and Holly for one last time as they battle ghosts and humans for truth and justice in this breathtaking finale to the bestselling series. 
 
'Stroud is a genius' - Rick Riordan

Lockwood & Co: The Empty Grave

Book 5

Susan Davis

Imagine meeting Henry VIII and finding he's madly in love with you! 
 
One lazy summer afternoon Abigail persuades Lauren and Marina to experiment with a homemade ouija board. The girls don't seriously expect the séance to work and are shocked when the glass starts moving, but that's nothing to the shock they get when they realise they have summoned up the spirit of a long-dead randy royal - Henry VIII. The trouble really begins when Henry declares his love for the sultry Marina and starts behaving in a seriously sinister manner. Jealous and possessive, Henry sets about controlling the girls' lives and making a right royal nuisance of himself... 
 
Friendship, first love and men behaving badly - this is a fantastically funny chick-lit read.

The Henry Game

Ian Beck

Flame-haired Charity Delafield has grown up in a vast, isolated house - most of which she is forbidden to explore - by her strict, cold father. With only her kindly nurse, Rose, and her cat Mr Tompkins for company, she knows very little of the outside world - or of her own family's shadowy past. What she does know is that she is NEVER to go outside unsupervised. And she is NEVER to over-excite herself, because of the mysterious 'condition' that she has been told she suffers from. 
 
But Charity has a secret of her own. All her life, she has had the same strange dream - a dream of a dark corridor, hidden somewhere in the house. Then, one day, Charity stumbles across the corridor. It leads to a door . . . and suddenly she realises things are not quite what they seem.

The Haunting of Charity Delafield

Paul Stewart

Chris Riddell

Barnaby Grimes is a tick-tock lad, running errands in his city, day and night, and high-stacking around the rooftops in search of new mysteries to solve. A fantastic romp through a Dickensian-style city, with a wonderful new hero in the guise of Barnaby. 
 
After collecting a strange parcel from a deserted ship in the fog of the docks, and delivering it to the local schoolmaster, Barnaby thinks he's earned a moment to sit on the rooftops and eat his favourite pasty. But soon he realises that all is not well at the school - but is the problem quite as he expects it? A gruesome tale of a school overrun by a terrible curse - who will survive?

Barnaby Grimes: Return of the Emerald Skull

Mark Frost

Will West is careful to live life under the radar. At his parents' insistence, he's made sure to get mediocre grades and to stay in the middle of the pack on his cross-country team. Then Will slips up, accidentally scoring off the charts on a nationwide exam, and he is recruited by an exclusive and mysterious prep school - the best school no one's ever heard of, with technology the likes of which no one's ever seen. 
 
At the same time, coincidentally - or not so - Will realizes he's being followed by men in dark hats, driving black sedans who pose a terrifying threat to his family. What follows is a series of events and revelations that places Will smack in the middle of a millennia old struggle between titanic forces . . .

The Paladin Prophecy

Book One

Justin hasn't ever really believed in the occult, even though his Grandpa Blake is an expert in it and has a house full of curious objects and old tattered books on magic. But when Daniel Eilersen, the class know-it-all, starts acting all high-and-mighty, Justin thinks he can scare him by performing a magic ritual from the ancient book he's stolen from his granddad's study. His friend Trevor, who always goes along with what Justin says and his little sister, Joy, complete the group. It's all about the atmosphere of course and Justin plans to give Eilersen a proper scare, but nothing will actually happen . . . 
 
Or will it . . .? 
 
On the old tennis court in the park, late one night, the four of them, unaware of the consequences of their actions, summon Dracherion, a malicious and dangerous spirit bent on revenge for being imprisoned in the ancient book by Grandpa Blake, years ago. Things go wrong and Dracherion breaks out of the circle designed to enclose him. The ritual has bound them to Dracherion and Justin, Joy, Trevor and Daniel know that the spirit will try and possess one of them so it can grow in strength and wreak its vengeance. 
 
A terrifying struggle follows as Dracherion grows stronger and stronger. It's a race against time to try and find a way of banishing the spirit out of this world. But how do they do that when one of them can't be trusted . . .?

The Summoning

Philip Pullman

Count Karlstein, or The Ride of the Demon Huntsman, was Philip Pullman's first novel for children, published by Chatto and Windus in 1982. It is a wonderful gothic melodrama which he first wrote as a play for school-children when he was an English teacher. 
 
No one in the village of Karlstein dares to leave their home on All Souls Eve - the night Zamiel, the Demon Huntsman comes to claim his prey. 
 
But the evil Count Karlstein has struck a terrible bargin with Zamiel, and so the lives of his young nieces, Lucy and Charlotte,are in danger. Their only hope lies with Hildi, a castle maidservant, and her fearless brother, Peter. Can they save the girls from their dreadful fate? Only one thing is certain - the Demon Huntsman will not return to his dark wood unsatisfied!

Count Karlstein - The Novel

Abbie, Lauren and Ruby are earning some holiday dosh at the Northgate Poetry Festival. It promises to be dull, dull, dull until they meet the ravishing Ron Lord. But then some seriously weird goings-on lead Abbie to suspect that the drop-dead-delicious poet may actually have dropped dead quite some time ago . . . 
 
Posing poets, fit photographers and a ghostly ex-girlfriend stalk the pages of this hilarious new novel from the author of The Henry Game and Delilah and the Dark Stuff.

Mad, Bad And Totally Dangerous

Matt Haig

From the bestselling author of A Boy Called Christmas, The Girl Who Saved Christmas, Father Christmas and Me and The Truth Pixie. 
 
*Winner of the Gold Smarties Prize, the Blue Peter Book Award and shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal* 
 
Samuel Blink is the hero of this story, but he doesn't know it yet. 
 
Right now, he and his sister Martha are in the back of his parents' car. He has no idea a giant log is about to fall from the sky and change his life forever. He doesn't know that he and Martha will be forced to move to Norway and eat their Aunt Eda's smelly brown cheese. He hasn't the slightest clue Martha will disappear into the Shadow Forest - a forest full of one-eyed trolls, deadly Truth Pixies, a shadow-stealing witch and the evil Changemaker. 
 
Samuel Blink doesn't know any of this. So don't tell him. It might ruin the book . . . 
 
An eerie, funny and exciting fairytale from multi-award-winning author Matt Haig. 
 
'Fascinating and magical . . . Outstanding' The Times

Shadow Forest

Now a major Netflix series! 
 
Lucy has left Lockwood & Co. A freelance operative, she is hiring herself out to other agencies - agencies that might value her ever-improving skills. 
 
But now Lockwood needs her help. 
 
Penelope Fittes, leader of the well-renowned Fittes Agency wants Lockwood & Co. - and only them - to locate and remove the 'Source' for the legendary Brixton Cannibal. 
 
It's a tough assignment. Made worse by the tensions between Lucy and the other agents - even the skull is treating her like a jilted lover! 
 
What will it take to reunite the team? Black marketeers, an informant ghost, a Spirit Cape that transports the wearer, and mysteries involving their closest rivals may just do the trick. 
 
But not all is at it seems. And it's not long before a shocking revelation rocks Lockwood & Co. to its very core . . . 
 
'Stroud is a genius' - Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series.

Lockwood & Co: The Creeping Shadow

Book 4

Barnaby Grimes is a tick-tock lad, running errands in his city, day and night, and 'high-stacking' around the rooftops in search of new mysteries to solve. In this first adventure, Barnaby is attacked one night by an enormous dog. He kills it - but that's not the end of this particular mystery . . . as Barnaby finds himself swept up in a world of crooked doctors, poor and ill-advised patients, strange tonics and very expensive furs... Could there be more to the seemingly respectable Dr Cadwallader and the tonics he doles out to the poor? Is there a link between the tonic and the huge dogs - or possibly wolves - that are roaming the city at night? When Barnaby's old acquaintance Benjamin goes missing, Barnaby fears the worst for him, and decides to dig deeper... 
 
A fantastic romp through a Dickensian-style city, with a wonderful new hero in the guise of Barnaby. This new series from the bestselling dream team of Stewart and Riddell is a must for all fans of the Edge Chronicles - but also for fans of Horowitz and Shan, as they move into new territory and deliver a brilliantly exciting thriller-horror for boys.

Barnaby Grimes: Curse of the Night Wolf

Robert Westall

'Ninety-eight keys, none of them labelled. Ninety-eight keys, and they say there are ninety-nine rooms . . . What will you find in the ninety-ninth room, I wonder?' 
 
Maggi is delighted when her father takes a new job, renovating a crumbling stately home in Cheshire. It's a chance to escape from the North-East, from the predatory Doris Streeton, and perhaps from the grief at the heart of Maggi's family. But Maggi gradually comes to realize that their new home holds secrets far more sinister than anything they have left behind . . .

Ghost Abbey

My name is Eleanor Kerchner. 
You can call me the Queen. 
I died in 1895. 
Now it’s time to play. 
 
A chilling ghost story by the bestselling author of The Spiderwick Chronicles, Holly Black. 
 
Recipient of a Newbery Honor Award. An ALA Notable Book. A Kirkus Reviews Best Book. A School Library Journal Best Book. A Booklist Editor’s Choice Books for Youth. A Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book. A 2013 Goodreads Choice award nominee. A People Magazine 'Best New Kids Book'.

Doll Bones

Now a major Netflix series! 
 
Lockwood & Co. might be the smallest (some might say shambolic) Psychic Detection Agency in London. But its three agents - Lockwood, Lucy and George - are exceptional Talents. And they get results. When an outbreak of ghostly phenomena grows to terrifying levels in Chelsea, Scotland Yard is left baffled. 
 
Even more baffling is that Lockwood & Co appear to have been excluded from the huge team of Agents investigating the Chelsea Outbreak. Surely this is the perfect chance for them to show once and for all that they're actually the best in town? Well, that's if they can put aside their personal differences for long enough to march into action with their rapiers, salt and iron . . . 
 
Ghouls and spectres, thrills and tension in this third instalment in Jonathan Stroud's bestselling series. 
 
'Stroud is a genius' - Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series.

Lockwood & Co: The Hollow Boy

Book 3

When Nick Spencer stumbles upon Bargains, the odd little back street shop seems like the perfect place to buy the present he's been searching for. And when the shopkeeper wants to take some of Nick's artwork instead of money for payment, he's even happier. 
 
But Nick soon realizes that the deal he's made is not quite the bargain he thought it was. His drawing skills have disappeared, and when he returns to the shop he finds himself trapped into a job he didn't sign up for, collecting debts for the mysterious Mr Grey. As his assignments grow steadily more and more traumatic and the shop takes over more and more of his life, the question becomes not when he'll earn his way out . . . but if he'll ever get out at all.

The Soul Trade

Tom Pow

The first time Sam sees the mysterious figure of Janet she vanishes into the deserted fields beyond the town where nothing has ever been built. Sam learns that centuries before this was the place to which plague victims were banished - Scabbit Isle - a place of terror. With the help of Mr Carruthers, the old curator of the local museum, Sam gradually uncovers the horror of Janet's story - consigned to Scabbit Isle by her cruel father and abandoned by her weak lover, Janet suffers without hope. She will continue to do so, if she can't find someone who, for love, will risk all to enter the plague colony to release her. Janet seems to be beckoning Sam to help her and a tragedy within Sam's own family brings Sam even closer to Janet's fate. Janet is the same age that Sam's twin sister Alice would have been had she not been killed in an accident. It is a loss from which Sam's father, in particular,has never recovered. Can Sam summon up the courage to face the terrors of Scabbit Isle and, like Orpheus, venture into the underworld to bring Janet peace?

Scabbit Isle

From the bestselling author of A Boy Called Christmas, The Girl Who Saved Christmas, Father Christmas and Me and The Truth Pixie. 
 
Samuel's not allowed to enter Shadow Forest. But what's to stop the forest from coming to him? 
 
There's one thing every troll child dreads more than anything - and that's the Betterer, the evil troll in Shadow Forest who loves to punish his fellow trolls for their grubby and stupid habits in lots of horrible ways. 
 
When one troll boy escapes the forest to be with his favourite human, Samuel Blink, the Betterer isn't happy. Until he realizes that the most useful thing to have in his Bettering Tower would be a real life human child. So he sets out on a quest into the human world to kidnap Samuel and the troll friend he's been hiding in his wardrobe . . .

The Runaway Troll

Malorie Blackman

When the mysterious stranger shows up at Nova's parents' hotel, she thinks her luck has changed - until she realizes she's the only one who can see him. 
 
Liam explains he's been here a long time. And he can never leave, no matter how hard he tries. 
 
Soon, Nova begins to piece his tragic story together. But she's hiding a secret of her own - one she's desperate to keep from her family. And now Liam's found her out . . .

Dead Gorgeous

Cameron McAllister

Bolt your doors! Do not dare to sleep! A kidnapper known as ‘The Demon Undertaker’ is on the loose in London! 
 
Yesterday he continued his reign of terror in his most chilling crime yet – kidnapping Lady Grace Davenport from under the very noses of her family! 
 
A barrage of bullets could not stop the blood-thirsty ghoul from escaping in his black hearse – is he man or vampyre? 
 
Young Thomas Fielding, nephew of the Chief Magistrate, stumbled across the villain and gave chase. Can Thomas and his team of Bow Street Detectives save Lady Grace and catch the Demon Undertaker before he snatches his next victim?

The Demon Undertaker

ROOM 13 
Somebody was in there. Somebody - or some thing. 
There is no room thirteen in the creepy Crow's Nest Hotel, where Fliss and her friends are staying on a school trip. Or is there? For at the stroke of midnight, something peculiar happens to the door of the linen cupboard next to room twelve. And something is happening to Ellie-May Sunderland, too - something very sinister. 
 
INSIDE THE WORM 
The worm was close now. So close Fliss could smell the putrid stench of its breath. Its slavering jaws gaped to engulf her. 
 
Everyone in Elsworth knows the local legend about the monstrous worm - or dragon - that once terrorised the village. But it never really happened. Or did it? For when Fliss and her friends are chosen to re-enact the legend for the village Festival, the four who are to play the part of the worm dance as one across the ground. They are the worm. And Fliss begins to feel real fear. Somehow the worm itself is returning - with a thousand-year hunger in its belly, and a burning desire for vengeance.

Room 13 And Inside The Worm

Helen Grant

Veerle has moved to Ghent to start a new life with her father and his girlfriend, she's isolated and alone. But not as alone as she had thought . . . 
 
Veerle recognises a familiar face in the crowds one day, a face connected to a past that she has been fighting to get over, a past that involved murder. 
 
A spate of deaths hit the city but has Death followed Veerle to Ghent or is this something new?

The Demons of Ghent

Terry Pratchett

From the legendary Terry Pratchett, the author of Discworld, the second instalment in the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy 
 
--------------------- 
 
Sell the cemetery? 
 
Over their dead bodies . . . 
 
Not many people can see the dead (not many would want to). Twelve-year-old Johnny Maxwell can. And he's got bad news for them: the council want to sell the cemetery as a building site. But the dead have learnt a thing or two from Johnny. They're not going to take it lying down . . . especially since it's Halloween tomorrow. 
 
Besides, they're beginning to find that life is a lot more fun than it was when they were . . . well . . . alive. Particularly if they break a few rules . . .

Johnny and the Dead

Chris Priestley

London, 1716. The streets are full of spies and buzzing with intrigue. Jacobite rebels are being rounded up and hanged at Tower Hill, and on the outskirts of London the roads are haunted by a mysterious Highwayman known only as The White Rider; a robber so fierce that he kills his victims simply by pointing at them! Tom Marlowe, caught in the fascinating heart of events, is resolved to get to the bottom of them. With the help of his mentor, Dr Harker, Tom is determined to discover who is behind the White Rider's gruesome mask. But Dr Harker seems to be keeping secrets of his own. Who is the mysterious stranger with the Scottish accent seen at Harker's house, and why does the Doctor lie when questioned about him? Highly atmospheric, with a gripping plot this historical adventure will fascinate and engage readers.

The White Rider

The first book in a terrifyingly spooktastic adventure series by Jason Segel! 
 
WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF NIGHTMARES! 
 
Sleeping has never been so scary. 
 
And now waking up is even worse! 
 
Charlie has just moved into the sinister purple mansion that overlooks Cyprus Creek with his dad and new wicked stepmother. 
 
He has terrible nightmares every night – and now they are slipping into the waking world too. 
 
Can Charlie and his friends stop the nightmares taking over and conquer the creatures of the night?

Nightmares!

Seventeen-year-old Veerle is bored with life in suburban Brussels. But a chance encounter with a hidden society, whose members illegally break into unoccupied buildings around the city, soon opens up a whole new world of excitement - and danger. 
 
When one of the society's founding members disappears, Veerle suspects foul play. But nothing can prepare her for the horror that is about to unfold when an old foe emerges from the shadows... No one is safe, and The Hunter will strike again...

Silent Saturday

biblio.categories.code

biblio.publicationStatus

biblio.brand

biblio.workEditions.format

biblio.ageRange

biblio.series.seriesName

biblio.imprint.description

biblio.type

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Best-Jane-Austen-quotes_Online-Desktop_Penguin

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

Search Results

The Fall of the West

Hunt the Villain

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Fight or Flight (Book 21)

The Mortons

Watch a trailer for The Spook's Blood

A photograph of Ben Barnes in character for Shadow and Bone Netflix series.

Interviews

Shadow and Bone’s Ben Barnes on tear-jerking books and what he’s reading

An image showing a selection of adventure stories for 9-12 year olds on a bright yellow background with orange doodles that include a hashtag, flag, danger sign and speech bubble

Children's reading lists

16 books for 9 to 12-year-olds that love adventures

An image of a selection of books for 9-12s on a blue background with a large splodge and striped print

24 must-read books for 9-12-year-olds

A picture of several different children's books on a pink to blue ombre background; each book has a bright yellow shadow

Showing results for: ‘joseph delaney’

Filters

Category

Age

Publication Date

Format

Series

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter