"Anna Dressed in Blood" By: Kendare Blake Review

"Anna Dressed In Blood" 

By: Kendare Blake

Synopsis from Barnes & Noble: 

     Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.
     So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered 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: track, 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, now stained red and dripping with 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.
     But she, for whatever reason, spares Cas's life.

My Thoughts:  
      I just finished this book last night and boy, do I have a lot to say! "Anna Dressed in Blood" is most definitely NOT something I would have picked up if I wasn't a YA librarian. Yet, I have to tell you, it definitely lives up to its hype of being both creepy yet sweet.
      Cas is a ghost hunter. He kills the ghosts that harm humans and he only goes after the mean ones. The story opens up with him going after a ghost that kills people near a bridge. When you start, Cas seems like every other kid...doing chores, talking with neighbors and suddenly during the first chapter with this ghost kill you realize Cas is much more than what he appears.
     I loved Cas! He was an amazing character, fully developed and you can tell what he was going to do before he does it. Smart too, which I appreciate from a YA novel. Cas kills ghosts because that's what his father did, and his father before him, and his father before him. Cas' father died when Cas was young as a result of an evil ghost that's kind of like a demon thing. Wish I could explain it better but it was kind of murky, definitely leaving room for sequels.
      Anna is a ghost Cas has come to kill. Anna kills people who come into her home. These scenes are pretty grisly, not going to lie. She splits one boy down the middle and she keeps the bodies in her basement. Definitely gross and creepy and the author does an excellent job of describing the scene pretty perfectly. Anna is bad because her mother had given her spirit to a devil or a demon...kind of murky which I think will be more devloped in sequels.
      Cas sees good things in Anna and Anna finds good things in Cas. A little bit of a romance develops between the human and the murdering ghost which I thought was a bit far fetched, but hey it worked in the story. Sure she kills people, but you can see she didn't want to :)
     If your in the mood for a horror story, pick up "Anna Dressed in Blood." The author leaves it wide open for sequels so be prepared. I will probably pick up the sequel, but hope some of the secondary characters will be left out of future installments.