The Grave Robber's Apprentice by Allan Stratton

In fact, no one is quite what he or she appears, least of all the titular apprentice. The Necromancer isn’t the evil, magical force he seems. Stratton handles the tropes and clichés of fairy-tale fantasy with a wink and a playful sense of destruction. Well, of course – it’s that kind of story, but knowingly so. Will Hans bolt from Knobbe? Will Angela flee the Archduke and his evil cohort, the Necromancer? Will the two tweens meet and join forces? Meanwhile, on the other end of the social spectrum, 12-year-old Countess Angela Gabriela von Schwanenberg is dreaming of a career as a puppeteer when she is kidnapped by an evil Archduke who has pegged her as his next bride-to-be, and whose wives have a nasty habit of dying on their wedding nights. Then, in my old age, he can tend me.”īy the time Hans is 13, he’s rebelling at the thought of becoming a grave robber himself. A few years more, he’ll be able to dig and tunnel and cart my gear. “In no time, the brat will be walking, talking,” Knobbe thinks. Rather than abandoning the boy, he decides to name him Hans and raise him as his own. Expecting treasure, he’s disappointed to find a baby within. The novel begins with Knobbe the Bent, a grave robber, discovering a chest on a beach after a storm. The Grave Robber’s Apprentice is funny, imaginative, just thrilling enough, and doesn’t take itself too seriously. With his latest novel, Toronto author and playwright Allan Stratton swerves sharply away from the finely observed realism of his previous YA novels (including 2005’s acclaimed Chanda’s Secrets) to arch, winning fantasy.

The Grave Robber's Apprentice by Allan Stratton