The Witch Hunter Chronicles: the scourge of Jericho

Stuart Daly (author)

Random House, Australia: July, 2011

ISBN: 9781742750521

Genres: adventure, fantasy, historical fiction

Issues: friendship, identity

extension vocabulary

Jakob von Drachenfels, 16 years old, is determined to become a brave warrior in the great battle between good and evil, just like the father he's never known.

Getting started is the problem, especially as his uncle and guardian is a farrier – someone who shoes horses rather than riding them to war. Jakob takes matters into his own hands and forges a letter of introduction into the famous Hexenjager, the highest ranking military order of Witch Hunters in Europe. Which is all very well but he's also invented for himself a sound military education, leaving him at something of a practical disadvantage when he's selected to ride out with a group of some of the most experienced Witch Hunters of the Hexenjager. The group is under orders to perform a secret mission in one of the most dangerously witch-nfested areas of the German states. Instead of the months of training he'd expected before his first task, Jakob finds himself on the road to death or glory, with death seeming the more likely option. Can he possibly survive?

A melodramatic adventure in the best swashbuckling tradition of The Three Musketeers, the Scarlet Pimpernel and other great swordsman of fiction, The Scourge of Jericho is a page-turning, suspenseful novel that will appeal to readers who like plenty of action and heroism. Young Jakob has a remarkable natural skill with the sword, a pure heart and the idealistic outlook of those destined to make the world a better place. The Hexenjager is the perfect context in which to forge the young hero's abilities.

Daly's first novel, set in what he acknowledges as one of his favourite periods of history, will inspire another generation of boys in their daydreams of great deeds and derring-do, codes of chivalry and the comradeship between warriors.

Gifted readers will enjoy the historical references and advanced vocabulary.