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 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.

I have been itching for a horror story for YA. I am not sure why. OK. That's a lie. I am an avid lover of YA paranormal (romance), but lately I have been looking for a villain that tares my characters apart. Anna Dressed in Blood is the closest thing that I have found that comes close to this. I literally want to be freaked out and scared.  This novel was close.

Cas... I like him because he talks like my students. He swears. He's snarky. He conscious of how to pull the strings in high school. He's a real person, in the sense you could walk into my 11th grade class and be like you, you are just like Cas.

Cas has to fight ghosts and there are several scenes where I was like: Did I read that right? It was super gory including a person being ripped apart, literally. The ghosts are monsters. I LOVED IT.

Half way through it did turn into a paranormal romance ...kind of, not full on Bella and Edward, but the element was there.

I think the most haunting (ha. get it? it's a story about ghosts.) about this story is what and who Anna is as a ghost and how she died. Like I was pissed for her. What a crappy, horrible, way to die. I wanted to beat her murderer up, just like Cas wanted to.

I think this book has inspired me to work on my dream walking novel. I really want to make it a thriller. Alright, a little romance.


BTW - my giveaway for Michelle Madow's Remembrance is still going on. Tomorrow, the 30th, is the last day you can enter.