Anna Dressed in Blood

A Kirkus Best Teen Book of the Year

One of NPR's Top 5 Young Adult Novels of the Year

"A dark and intricate tale. . . . Spellbinding and romantic." —Cassandra Clare, #1 New York Times –bestselling author

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 . . .

"It's the old boy meets girl story, if the boy is a wry, self-destructive ghost-hunter bent on avenging his father and the girl is a homicidal ghost trapped in a house full of everyone she's ever murdered. Needless to say, Cas and Anna are my new favorite twosome. When I got to the last page, I flipped back to the first." ―Holly Black, New York Times –bestselling author of Red Glove

"Cinematic and compelling. Blake's smooth combination of gore and romance should have little problem attracting the Twilight crowd." — Booklist