Fortnight of Fright 2014: Book Recommendations (Ellen from Quest Reviews)

Welcome to our third annual FORTNIGHT OF FRIGHT event!
October 17th – October 31st, 2013

Two years ago, Alyssa (Books Take You Places) and I really bonded over our mutual love of Halloween and came up with the idea for A FORTNIGHT OF FRIGHT: a two-week long event celebrating everything Halloween and horror-related! We decided to bring it back again for the third annual Fortnight of Fright event, this time along with Amy (Tripping Over Books), so this event is brought to you by all of the gals from On the Same Page!

Today, Ellen from Quest Reviews has a book recommendation for us — Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake. Take it away, Ellen!

Title: Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
Publishing Info: August 30, 2011 by Macmillan
Find it on the web: Buy from Amazon // GoodreadsDate Completed: N/A
Related Posts: Antigoddess (Antigoddess #1), Three Dark Crowns (Three Dark Crowns #1), Anna Dressed in Blood (Anna #1)

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.

If you’re a fan of YA fiction and of spooky stories, chances are very high that you’ll like Anna Dressed In Blood.  And, if you also happen to like the CW’s Supernatural, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll enjoy the book.  Cas could appear on an episode of the series without anything seeming amiss.

I read the book a little over a year ago and was delighted by its spine-tingling thrills.  The plot follows Cas, a teenage ghost-hunter, who travels from town to town with his Wiccan mother, targeting ghosts for elimination purposes.  When the book opens, Cas is preparing to move to Thunder Bay, where a tip has informed him that a ghost — Anna Dressed In Blood — violently haunts the house where she lived in the 50’s.

Isn’t that creepy? *shivers*

We see right away that this particular ghost hunt will be a different sort of case for Cas.  He loathes ghosts, because a spirit killed his father, but from the get-go Cas is intrigued by Anna’s story.  As a reader, I was too, to say the least.  Anna was on her way to a school dance when someone attacked her, spilling so much blood, that her garments were soaked with the stuff.  I know, I know — very gruesome.  Since then, Anna’s spirit has lived on, and she has a serious chip on her shoulder. (Understandable.) Finding himself more sympathetic to a ghost’s plight than ever before, Cas seeks to uncover he true story of what happened to Anna, instead of merely trying to exterminate her spirit.

The book is part action/adventure, part mystery — a combination that is successful.  The mood is, for the most part, sombre and serious, except for when high school dynamics get involved.  I found this aspect to be the weakness of the book.  The intended comic relief of the cast of teenage characters took away something from the story, making the book more ordinary — garden-variety YA.  For this reason, I don’t count Anna Dressed In Blood as a particularly favorite read. However, it’s a fantastic, breezy book for those looking for a spooky book to read for Halloween.

Thanks, Ellen! Great review and a perfect suggestion for Halloween! It’s one I still need to read myself! You can also see the full review on Ellen’s blog at Quest Reviews!