My Rating- 5 STARS
Synopsis- 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. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay.
Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: 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.Yet she spares Cas's life.
Review- This was a fantastic book I just couldn't put down!
Cas is a seventeen year old ghost hunter, he comes from a long line of ghost hunters and takes up this duty when his father is viciously murdered by a particularly nasty ghost. He slays only those who are reliving their torment and murdering humans. They cant help it. He helps them to move from this world in to the next...whatever the next world is. When Cas takes on the job to end the hauntings of Anna, a ghost who literally tears her victims apart and wears a dress red with slick blood, he cant get her out of his mind. When he meets her, he never expected to care for her, to witness the terror of her life and the shocking way she died. Anna is more aware than any ghost. She knows she is dead and she knows there is something dark inside her that she can barely control. Only Cas has escaped death. Never before has Cas second guessed himself when it comes to killing a ghost until Anna.
I found this book beautiful, humorous, fun, sassy and fast paced. I looked forward to turning every page and yet hated that it had to end. Anna is a beautiful character that captured my heart, especially after hearing her story of pain and death. She is strong, brave and yet so vulnerable. I rarely read books with a male lead but Cassio's mind was fantastic. He is a determined character, sure of his duty in the world and yet when Anna knocks him off balance I loved very second of him trying to figure out why he couldn't bring himself to kill her. His mum, Carmel and Thomas add their own personalities and are great supporting cast in a book I feel should be a YA film!
The ending to this book was amazingly written and I am now longing to reach for the second in the series which is sitting proudly on my bookcase! 5 star amazing read. Loved it