Anna Dressed In Blood by Kendare Blake (Book Review)

Gooderads Summary:
Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until he was grusomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels across 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 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. When he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the same 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 home she used to call home.

But she, for whatever reason, spares Cas's life.

                                           My rating - 4.5

My review:
Anna Dressed In Blood is one of my all-time favourite horror novels written for young adults. It's action packed, scary and romantic. The premise reminds me of the television show Supernatural but is no way in any form a rip-off. Cas is a kick-ass character with a great sense of humour and that's the type of character I admire. I don't read many novels with male protagonists, especially ones written by a woman (I'm a woman myself so I'm not being sexist) but Cas is a well developed,  realistic character.

Anna was an amazing character. She was scary at first but as the story moved on we started to see another side to her and discovered why she was like she was. I particularly like the relationship between Anna and Cas. She was also very likable and well developed.

One thing I hate about a lot of young adult novels is absent parents. In real life, every teenager has a parent (or at least some-sort of a responsible adult) in their life to guide them. So where are the parents in the young adult novels? Anna Dressed In Blood is one of those rare YA novels where the parent isn't non-existent. Cas's mother was well developed, and we saw more of her than random appearances.

If you like well developed storylines and characters, suspense and non-predictable twists and turns, then check out Anna Dressed In Blood. You won't be disappointed.