Joseph Delaney

Joseph Henry Delaney (25 July 1945 – 16 August 2022) was an English author, best known for the children's dark fantasy series Spook's. The series draws on the folklore, history, and geography of Lancashire, and has been published in 30 countries, with reported sales of more than 4.5 million copies. Born in Preston, Lancashire, Delaney worked as a teacher before publishing science fiction and fantasy fiction under the pen name J. K. Haderack. After finding limited success as an author of books for adults, he began writing for children under his own name. His first children's book, The Spook's Apprentice, was published in 2004. It won several awards and was later adapted as a play script, the feature film Seventh Son, and a French graphic novel. The Spook's Apprentice began the Spook's sequence, which grew to 20 books, with additional works set in the same fictional world. After the publication of the second book in the series, Delaney retired from teaching to write full-time. He also wrote two other children's series, the science fiction and fantasy trilogy Arena 13 and the dark fantasy duology Aberrations. Delaney died in Manchester in 2022, aged 77. His final book, Brother Wulf: Wulf's War, was published posthumously in 2023.