Anna Dressed in Blood

I don't tend to read horror books. I remember being traumatised as a child by a book that belonged to my sister. It was a pulpy trashy horror sort of thing which had people running away from giant crabs (!) and then, slightly later, at what was my sister's 21st birthday and a combined Halloween party, the film Halloween was on and I saw a little too much of it. I still can't watch it to this day and that's nearly 30 years ago.

So I was feeling brave when I picked up Anna Dressed In Blood which is a teen horror title. Very brave indeed.

The story concerns Cas Lowood, who is a 16/17 year old ghost hunter.  Since the death of his father, he's travelled the world with his mother killing malevolent ghosts; the kind of ghosts that don't stay dead; the kind of ghosts who, upset about the way they died, kill the living. He's essentially following in his father's footsteps, as he was a ghost hunter before him, and to that end he uses his father's knife, a long bladed weapon known as the athame. He's quite successful. 

His latest case takes Cas, his mother and her cat to Canada, and to mysterious Anna Korlov, who haunts the house where she was killed. There's something different about Anna though, she's an incredibly strong ghost, and instead of dispatching her Cas and his new found friends try to discover the mystery behind Anna's death. There's a deeper story here too though and the mystery of just what did happen to Cas' dad becomes a thrilling and unexpected plot twist.

I really, really enjoyed this book. It's worth looking past the frankly appalling cover which appears to have been designed to alienate boys from reading it; the computer generated face of a girl in a red dress beckoning, could have been so much better. Even a knife would have been more appealing.
There are quite a few genuinely scary and chilling moments in this book. Cas convinces a group of his new classmates to take him to Anna's house and what happens to the school jock there is brutal, the ending scenes too are chilling in their unexpectedness. There's also a nice balance of the characters, they aren't all you'd expect them to be. Add to this a touch of romance, not too heavy, but if you like that sort of thing, well you could read more into it than I did! It just all adds up to an enjoyable read.

In summary a great summer teen chiller I would say from 14 upwards, there are enough scares to keep you on your toes and even a scaredy cat like me found it to be a real page turner.