'Anna Dressed in Blood' by Kendare Blake: Review & Giveaway

Anna Dressed in Blood

Anna Book #1 

By Kendare Blake

Published on August 30,2011 

Published by TorTeen

Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story...

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.

Anna Dressed in Blood is the first book in the Anna series by Kendare Blake.  I had seen this book on Goodreads and was intrigued by the synopsis but I am a giant baby when it comes to scary stuff so I may have dragged my feet a bit in getting to this gem. I wish I'd read it sooner, honestly. It was a phenomenal read and I am a little in love with the cover. It's beautiful in a haunting way. 

As I said above,  I don't normally go for the scary stories, but this one drew me in from the start. Cas, our narrator, is a fantastically sarcastic BOY.  Yep, that's right, I said boy.  There are not nearly enough male leads in the YA universe right now in my opinion.  This book is terrifyingly creepy in a spine tingling kind of way.  I actually had to put it down and walk away a few times when things got a little more gory than I was used to. 

Anna Dressed in Blood is what I like to call the total package; it's non-stop action and suspense, some twists and yes, even romance. It made me laugh, cry and shudder in revulsion. I loved it.  I cannot wait to read book two, Girl of Nightmares.  This is a must read for those of you who love a good spooky story. 

My Rating: 

And now because I love you guys, I decided to throw in a giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck everyone!

I tire of writing these things in the third person. So. I write fiction, apparently mostly YA. I didn't know this, but like Stephen King says, writers are the last ones to know what it is they've written. My first novel,Sleepwalk Society is a college story. I guess it falls into that no man's land they call, "New Adult".Anna Dressed in Blood and Girl of Nightmares are teen horror. My short fiction can be found online in numerous places.

But enough about that. When I am not writing or reading, you can generally find me sitting around wondering what the hell I'm going to do with my life. That, or being a gastronome, plotting a new recipe. Perhaps on a run or hike, playing tennis or watching Big Cat Diaries with my feline. This summer I have saved a total of three turtles during attempted road crossings.

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