Anna Dressed in Blood (Anna #1)

hope for Cas to find Anna.

Loved it!

Ghost stories aren’t usually my thing but I heard so many good things about ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD, I had to decide for myself. Now, after reading it, I know why Kendare Blake has so many people talking about her book. She knows how to write a good story and knows how to keep her readers interested. For a book about ghosts, it’s not necessarily horror but it does have enough magic and action to keep you engaged in the story all the way to the end.

The first scene reminded me of the TV show, Supernatural. It’s where we met Cas, the narrator, as he was driving a Camaro, on the hunt to pick up a ghostly hitchhiker. After his father died at the hand of a ghost, Cas became obsessed with avenging his father’s death by trying to kill as many ghosts as possible. I found Cas a little arrogant and smug, since he thought he was one of the only one that could hunt and kill ghosts. He did have the advantage of possessing an athame, a special knife that enable him to kill ghosts, but that alone shouldn’t make him the only or best ghost killer. But overall, I think his smugness was part of his quirky charm and I really enjoyed reading a YA novel with a male’s point of view. We read so many YA paranormal novels with female point of views so I found it refreshing to have a different outlook. Especially since having a male narrator means not getting pestered with annoying girly and teenage… touchy-feely stuff. Also, I loved Cas’s no-nonsense character. He might have been a little distant when it came to making friend but to him, killings ghosts was more important. I found he explained himself quite well when he said, “I guess I never give too much thought to the living.”

After the hitchhiker, Cas moved on to a bigger challenge, and we finally learn about Anna dressed in blood. Who is literally dressed in blood. If I had to describe Anna in one word, I would say Awesome! (A second word, however, would be bipolar). She's unlike any ghost I've ever read about and she scared me to death, at first. Unlike Cas, she wasn’t necessarily vengeful but had murderous tendencies because she was more or less grieving the loss of her life. I won’t reveal more about her because I don’t want to ruin Anna’s story but I do want to mention that the imagery used to describe Anna was absolutely wonderful.

Some of my favorite parts in the book were seeing the relationship between Thomas and Carmel develop (Cas’s friends and sidekicks). Thomas is more or less an awkward geek and Carmel is the prom queen socialite. The unlikeliness of this relationship happening in real life made it that much more enjoyable to read about. Thomas is also the comic relief in the story, while Carmel is more the voice of reason.

One thing’s for sure—Kendare Blake keeps you guessing until the very end of the book. She’s a great story-teller and she has me wanting to read more about Anna and Cas’s lives. I recommend this book to anyone who likes to read YA paranormal novels, and I’m not just saying that because Kendare Blake chose a Canadian city as the setting for her book. According to the author, only two books are planned for the series.

This book has one of the creepiest covers ever. I absolutely love it. This story sounds like it would be pretty creepy right? Well it is, in some parts at least but it's also very sweet and romantic as well. This is one of those books that I had to put down at night, solely due to the fact that reading ghost stories at night bothers me. I would however rush to pick it back up in the morning. This is a book that I won't be able to get out of my head for a while.

Just the first like of the description "Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story" was enough to draw my attention. I knew going in that this would probably end up being somewhat of a romance and it really did a great job of that by not taking over the entire storyline.

The ghost aspect was really refreshing, instead of the main character being afraid of ghosts or just being haunted by one, he actually sought them out to "kill" them. This really made the story interesting and the whole time I was wondering whether or not Cas would really be able to "kill" Anna.

The characters really helped make this book for me. Cas was an independent guy who wasn't part of mainstream society. He worked in the dark and kept himself distanced from people mainly because of what he did every night. He's actually a pretty sweet and caring person once Thomas and Carmel managed to get past his anti-social shell. Thomas was an interesting one. He was so shy and withdrawn yet he had this personality that just made me like him. Carmel seemed like such a snob in the beginning but as the story goes on we find out that she's actually much deeper than that. I loved Anna. Her story is so tragic and the things that she does are horrible. Yet there is so much humanity left inside of this girl who had everything taken away, she actually feels regret.

The story is emotional as well. There is the one scene where we finally learn Anna's whole story and believe me it's a sad one. I found myself getting upset and angry over the fate that she met and I kept rooting for her as the story progressed. The story had a shocking twist as well, I didn't see a lot of the things coming that happened and for that I was really happy, who wants a predictable ghost story anyway?

I absolutely loved Anna Dressed in Blood and I can't wait to get my hands on the sequel. If you like ghost stories then I definitely recommend checking this one out. Even if you aren't that big of a fan of ghost stories, I still recommend this, there are plenty of other aspects to this story like romance, mystery and suspense.

Cover: One look at the cover and you’ll know that this book is about a ghost… Anna was pictured on the cover very beautifully…

Theseus Cassio:

Or Cas is the main protagonist in the story… The story is also told from his POV… At the start of the book I felt Cas was just using people for his interest… You can see it clearly at the first chapters of the story… His strategy was to ‘find the queen bee of the school’ and from there he can start his mission… I also felt that Cas is sometimes too proud of himself… I said this because in one of the scenes in the book, he even said to his ‘friend’ that he’s the only one who could use his father’s athame (he never tested this theory) and of course kill Anna… But maybe he only said that so he could get his athame back…

Anna Korlov:

Also known as Anna Dressed in Blood is a killer ghost... She’s a very powerful ghost and she seems a one-of-a-kind ghost… Cas really had a hard time figuring her out, he even had to use a spell to know how she got very powerful… Her story is a really sad one… Imagine doing something that you don’t even like! Forced to do something against your will while you’re there sitting at the back of your mind! You’ll understand it once you have read the story…

Story:

The story is overall a champion… The scenes were written beautifully and they will surely captivate you… I remember the scene where the Obeahman was coming down the stairs (that was really scary!)… I was really imagining it! You won’t regret buying this book…

Warning:

And lastly, this book contain swear words… They’re not really many but they are there…

Everybody has been ranting and raving about this book and after reading the summary about it, I knew it would intrigue me. It's supposed to be an ironic paranormal romance which made me slightly nervous because I honestly thought it would be cheesy and not my type of read. Don't get me wrong, contemporary and romance are great, but mixed with a paranormal plot, it just didn't sound too exciting.

I think the order of this book was very well written and it set up the story awesomely. It started out very action packed which I honestly didn't see coming. I didn't expect this ghost story to be gory at all, but this had some very disgusting aspects.

I can honestly say this book made me tear up at some parts. It makes you have hope for some characters. It makes you want to reach into the book and smack the hell out of the others. Point is, either way you felt about them, it still made you feel something. That's what I was hoping for in this book. It exceeded my expectations.

I’m feeling kind of wishy-washy about Anna Dressed in Blood. On the one hand, I really loved the story itself with all the little side-stories and ghosties, but on the other, something about it just didn’t quite work for me.

Let’s talk characters first. None of them really jumped out and grabbed me with either a great like or dislike. I liked Anna and Thomas a good bit, but that’s about it. Everyone else just fell kind of flat for me, which is actually okay since I’m more of a story girl.

Now for the writing. Sometimes the pop-culture references just got to be a bit much for me. Especially when I couldn’t understand them. They petered out towards the end, so I appreciated that.
Sometimes I felt like I was thrust into the middle of a conversation where everyone else knew what was going on and I was left in the dark. I really don’t like feeling like I have to play catch-up. I don’t need things spelled out for me, I’m pretty good at putting the pieces together myself, but sometimes it felt like the characters were holding some of the pieces hostage from me.
Also, this could just be because the book I finished before this was over 500 pages, but it felt like it was moving a little too quickly at times.

Now that I’ve got all that out of my system, let’s talk the good stuff.

I really enjoyed the story. It’s very rare that I come across a ghost story in YA that’s actually more than face-value horror (such as R.L. Stine), but Anna Dressed in Blood certainly has more going for it. I mean, we’ve got Cas working through his “I’m a lone ranger” complex; a little relationship building with side characters; a ghost that’s evil, but also maybe not; and scary undefined evil character from Cas’s past. That may sound like a lot, but Blake really makes it all work for the story.
I love that Anna actually has a personality and isn’t just all “Kill everybody!”
The Nusthell: Though the characters weren’t my favorite and the story seemed to move too quickly at times, I really did enjoy it overall. Blake has woven a ghost story that’ll have you shivering under your covers, but unable to put the book down because you simply must find out what happens next. This isn’t some shallow “ghost kills people, good guy kills bad ghosts” story either. There’s a real story with history and emotions that’ll completely draw you in.

Creepy yes but tolerable. Thanks to magic of spells part

This is just your average boy meets girl, girl kills people story... Yes, you read right. Girl kills people as in minces them up. It was probably not a good idea to start this book at 10 at night...

Cas kills ghosts. He always has, and probably always will. He basically travels around the country, killing the nasties that go bump in the night and bother people. Bother, as in, kill them. Now, Cas, armed with his ghost-detector cat, his athame and his white-witch mother, has arrived in Thunder Bay to send off a particular nasty called Anna Korlov, more commonly known as Anna Dressed in Blood. It seems that Anna has been tearing, slicing, dicing, and basically mincing anyone who dares to venture into her house. Oh yes. Cas expects to dip in, hunt, and slip out, just as he's always done. But Anna is different. Anna is more powerful than any other ghost. And for some reason, he is the only person who has ever escaped her house alive.

CAS

Cas's real name is Theseus Cassio, and the story is told from his POV. At the start I thought that Cas was a bit conceited, and the girls were going a bit too googly-eyed at him,and he was a bit too proud of himself for my liking. There wasn't really any back story as to why only his family could use the athame, but I hope that we'll get some later in the series.

Okay, with the romance thing, seriously? I mean, Cas is going goo goo eyes over a dead girl? Yes, this is the girl who has black eyes, black veins running up and down her arms, a humongous neck wound that opens and makes her dress drip with blood, and who tears people in half? Okay, granted, she's not always like that, but still.

But the good thing is, at least Carmel and Cas didn't end up together. Thankyou, Blake, for not going down that much used, and very annoying path.

ANNA

A little bit of backstory before I go on (don't worry, nothing important shall be revealed). Anna Korlov died in 1958, while going to a dance in her beautiful little white dress. Her throat was slit from ear to ear, and it was rumoured that her dress was soaked in blood, so that it wasn't white any more.

Sadly, Anna stopped being a gory, bloody, tears-people-in-half monster about halfway through the book, although I did love those horror scenes. My favourite parts in this books were probably the horror scenes. They had me looking under my bed and ogling my window before I went to bed. But sadly, the horror factor from Anna really only lasted for when we first met her.

Oh Anna, why couldn't you remain really scary? What I really wanted you to do, at least for a little bit, was run around, tear some people up, and generally keep me awake for a couple of nights. Instead, you had to transform into a sad little girl who I couldn't help but feel sorry for, even if you did...

And it was never explained why you didn't want to hurt Cas. Why is this kid so special? Again, I hope more will be explained later.

But other than that, I really liked Anna. She is both a monster and an innocent girl, a killer and a victim, and you can never totally figure her out. She is a really lovely, murdersome, difficult-to-figure-out ghost character/love interest.

This is a really awesome, gory story that I would definitely recommend, as long as you aren't scared of the dark or anything like that... Now I shall go and hide under my covers for a bit....

I can't wait to read the sequel to this!