Books
Mini Review: Anna Dressed in Blood
As dark and looming as any classic campfire tale of ghosts and bloody killers
Review Date: July 25th, 2012
Cover Copy
Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story…
Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: he kills the dead.
So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder 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: move, 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, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian house she used to call home.
But she, for whatever reason, spares his life.
Review
Thoroughly entertaining. The title alone evoked such a perfect sense of the story — as dark and looming as any classic campfire tale of ghosts and bloody killers (like Bloody Fingers, or Bloody Mary). I loved the characters and the world-building. The story was dark, funny, fast-paced, intriguing, mysterious, intense, and definitely satisfying. Oh, and it’s not your eyes… the type is set in maroon ink. A great little touch.
First Line
The grease-slicked hair is a dead giveaway — no pun intended.
Favorite Lines
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Those towns aren’t any less haunted than the others. They’re just better liars.“
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I like it more to come to a place like this, where the scent of death is carried to you on every seventh breath.“
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I wouldn’t touch New Orleans with a ten-foot pole. That town is haunted as shit, and all the better for it. Nowhere in the world loves its ghosts more than that city.“
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Only the dickiest of dicks would refuse to shake my hand. And I have just met the dickiest of dicks. … They all nod at me like total assholes except for Will Rosenberg, who shakes my hand.“
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Someone is following me. The sensation is so acute that I can actually feel my eyes try to slip through my skull and part the hair on the back of my head.“
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They all make their way down the bleachers clumsily — which is the only way to go down bleachers.“
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It’s strange how just the sound of someone’s name can be made to act like a branding.“
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It’s pointless to try to be stealthy. It’s like being the first one awake in the morning, when every move you make is as loud as a foghorn, no matter how quiet you try to be.“
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There’s a definite chill on the wind, an early taste of fall, twisting through my hair with ice-water fingers.“
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So I try to stay awake during geometry. I don’t do a great job. They shouldn’t be allowed to teach math so early in the morning.“
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It feels … like I’ve touched something that’s taken the color out of me.“
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I know magic works, I know it’s real, but i don’t know why it has to be so damn fruity sometimes.“
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What is it about the sight of your mother that makes everything fireside-warm and full of dancing Muppets?“
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Imagination has a poor memory; it slinks away and goes blurry. Eyes remember for much longer.“
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I keep thinking of nomadic native tribes, and how they could pack up an entire civilization in about an hour to follow some buffalo. When did human beings start acquiring so much crap?“
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It’s just a thing; it’s not some inherently good or inherently evil artifact. It has no will of it’s own. I haven’t been hopping around and calling it my Precious all these years.
Last Word
- perfect
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