YA Week: The Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

by:  Kendare Blake
published by:  Tor Teen
publish date:  August 7, 2012

It's been months since the ghost of Anna Korlov opened a door to Hell in her basement and disappeared into it, but ghost-hunter Cas Lowood can't move on.  Now he's seeing Anna everywhere: sometimes when he's asleep and sometimes in waking nightmares. But something is very wrong...these aren't just daydreams. Anna seems tortured, torn apart in new and ever more gruesome ways every time she appears.  Cas doesn't know what happened to Anna when she disappeared into Hell, but he knows she doesn't deserve whatever is happening to her now. Anna saved Cas more than once, and it's time for him to return the favor.
Girl of Nightmares is the 2nd book in the Anna Dressed in Blood series.  I really enjoyed the first book, but this book just wasn't quite there for me. 

Cas is trying to resume his ghosthunting job, but he's having a hard time with it.  The ghost killing knife that he uses is tainted with the knowledge that it may or may not be strengthening the dark entity that killed his father.  He's also seeing Anna everywhere.   There's something wrong with Anna, it's as if she's being tortured.  In an effort to understand what happened to Anna and what he can do to help her, he travels to England to get in touch with a secret society that he hopes will have the answers he's looking for.

Girl of Nightmares was just so-so.  I did enjoy revisiting the world that Cas lives in.  However, his feelings for Anna in this book didn't seem quite realistic.  Maybe it was because it's been awhile since I read the first book, but I just wasn't feeling what Cas was....it didn't make sense that he would be pining over a dead ghost.  Perhaps, if some of the first book had been replayed reminding the reader of what their relationship had been like, it would have given the situation a little more depth.

There's another book coming in this series.  I'm sure I'll read it, but I doubt it'll be a high priority.  Girl of Nightmares didn't thrill me like the first book did, but I'm curious to see where the story goes.  Other than being scary and violent, this book isn't too bad in terms of need any parental warning.  I'm sure most kids that would be reading this have watched a scary movie or two.

Autumn's Most Anticipated for 2012

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

by:  Kendare Blake
published by:  Tor Teen
publish date:  August 30, 2011

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.

The comments I had heard on this book ranged from hilarious to horrifying, needless to say I was intrigued.  Plus, I really like ghost stories.  I was really excited to read this book.  I loved the title, I loved the cover, it was a great set up for a really spooky story.

Overall I was impressed.  It was a good, creepy ghost story.  There were parts of it that were shockingly violent and completely unexpected.  Some parts were a little cheesy and hokey, but when don't you see that in a horror novel?  The characters were entertaining, but I wish more was explained about the cat, perhaps in later books. 

The one thing about this book that had me a little spooked was that Cas's dad was killed in a house in Baton Rouge.  The whole time I was reading the book I kept wondering why the author picked Baton Rouge.  Why not New Orleans?  There's more voodoo in New Orleans I'm sure and I don't work in New Orleans.  Just sayin!  I don't want to be thinking about man-eating, voodoo ghosties while I'm driving around.

Moving along...I saw that the cover for the next book has been revealed, but no release date