**REVIEW** Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead. 
So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay. When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home. And she, for whatever reason, spares his life.

Release Date: July 5, 2012

Published by:  Orchard Books

Review Format: Paperback, 373 pages

Trailer

Interesting... Looked on Kendare Blake's site and this is the trailer there.

Creepy in its own way isn't it...

 Review

  Holy crap and all things awesome I hope you have had a chance to pick this one up!  I mean this is one that everyone and anyone that enjoys a good spook should have.  It will keep you hanging on every page and even getting goose bumps as Anna makes her entrance.  At that point I was seriously questioning how I had ever put off reading this book.  Don't make the same mistake I did and wait because you too will wonder why!

    Where do I start with the story really?  It's not even close to your basic tale of ghost and hunter. Truth be told its not even a typical novel.  Kendare Blake created this wonderful and gory world in which a person can become to halves in a matter of moments.  Spinning a tale with Anna being the destructive ghost and the possible love interest...  Ya that couldn't have been easy but you know what she pulled I off very step of be way.  This was not only done but it was believable and there were times I may av ounce myself forgetting just what Anna was.

  Cas an extremely well done character, he was crystal clear and easy to get a feel for.  He may not have been swoon worthy for me but he did demand to be know and read.  I constantly found myself wondering how he would proceed and what plan of action did he have next, when I had to put this book down.  Did I mention that this was also in Cas's POV and it was magnificently done at that.  Cas is cauky, witty and easy to like despite his detachment or attempted detachment from everything and everyone (minus his mother) that tries to get close to him.  I still am just blown away by him and his story, determination and dedication.

  Anna...  How do I even start with her?  She is broken and tortured and terrifying!  This girl has 
had one hell of a past, both figuratively and literally.  The thought of strolling into her house could strike terror into the strongest of souls.  However you do find out why and its horrible, she's sixteen and the  stuff she went through is the stuff of nightmares.  So the fact that she became the thing nightmares are made of isn't really a stretch.  Despite the fact that she's terrifying she has this inner strength that constantly shines through.  It starts with her not attacking/mutilating Cas and then pushes through more and more as the story progresses.

  There is also much to love in the secondary characters and the romance that lays under the surface of the pages to start.  Carmel and Thomas were down right wonderful in completely opposite ways.  This is kind of obvious with one being the virtually invisible and the other being the one everyone wants to be or be with in the school.  Despite the fact that they are opposites their common interest in Cas nd helping him gets them to put their diffences aside and maybe more than that.  The fact that they even stood by Cas as it became obvious that he was falling for Anna was inspiring because the chick is just scary as all hell.

  The fact that this is a ghost story really intrigued me as well.  I am a total in love with ghost stories real or not.  They have caught my attention since I was a child and they have also at times scared the crap out of me.  Anna with her high violence police and gory way of disposing those that cross her fit the "scare the crap out of me" group.  However I learned as I read that not all is as it seems and sometimes they are.  The biggest creep moment came closer to the end and let me tell you I had several lights on "just in case."  I totally prepared for the worst and wanted to hide Cas and his friends but being a book I couldn't and I pushed on.

To be honest I probably could go on and on about this book.  I could write a review a mile long  and still not feel like I mentioned everything I wanted to or properly expressed myself.  However the fact that you all don't want another novel has stopped me.  This book is brilliant, original and creepy.  I can't wait to pick up Girl of Nightmares and see where Blake takes this series!!!  I can tell you something though, it doesn't matter where it goes I will be sure to follow.

Quotes

The idiots would take Caper's side, and then I'd have to kill Casper and them after Casper bit their throats out.

Instead I find a ghost with the strength of a storm, black eyes, and pale hands, not a dead person at all but a dead goddess.  Persephone back from Hade, or Hecate half-decayed.

... But hey, at least we'll have this strange story to tell, love and death and blood and daddy issues.  And holy crap, I am a psychiatrist's wet dream.

I have to look well.  I have to appear confident.  Because my mother is worried to the point of prematurely greying, and Carmel and Thomas look way too pale, even for Canadian kids.