Book Rec — Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Read this!!!

Nuff said.

Just kidding. But seriously, this book is astoundingly good. It’s got everything you could want in a horror tale: scariness, humor, action, love, you name it. Oh, and in case you’re too much of a bum to click on the link to the description on Amazon (…kidding…). Here’s the description:

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.

Cool right? Although, even the description doesn’t do this one enough justice.  Sounds a bit like Supernatural, yes? Well, it definitely has the same kind of sassy feel, but bled through with Tim Burtonesque imagery that is as beautiful as it is startling (and awesomely gruesome in parts). I dare you to go here and read the first chapter and then NOT want to read the rest. Go on, give it a shot, but be warned, the book doesn't come out until the end of this month!

Really, my only complaint is that I wanted Anna Dressed in Blood to be about a zillion pages longer. And yet it was the perfect length with a perfect story arc and a homerun ending. Did I mention it was perfect?

So yeah, lucky me (and definitely lucky you, dear readers), the sequel to Anna is already in the edit stage. That’s great news. Trust me, Kendare Blake’s is a writer whose stories you’ll want to get lost in (even if those stories might eat you alive). Or maybe because of.

Happy Reading