Book Talk - the Anna series by Kendare Blake

Hey guys! For the very first Book Talk ever, I think I'll talk about one of my favourite series.

The first book, Anna Dressed in Blood, is set for the most part in Thunder Bay, Canada, and the protagonist, Theseus Cassio Lowood (or Cas to most people) is a 16-year-old ghost hunter who "kills" - for lack of a more apt word - ghosts, living a nomadic existence with only his mother, a kitchen witch, for company.

Until he gets a note from Daisy, one of his contacts who finds new ghosts for him to wipe of the surface of the earth. This is when Cas's story really begins, an epic tale of love, loss, and of course, death.

(That sounds really dark, but it's really not that bad. It's the perfect balance.)

Along the way Cas meets Carmel Jones, school queen bee. What I absolutely love about Carmel's character is that she IS NOT your stereotypical, dumb-blonde, look-at-me-I'm-so-much-better-than-all-of-you-because-I'm-a-cheerleader-GOOOOOO-WILDCATS! queen bee that is usually found in fiction. She's smart, kind, and actually pretty damn brave.

Also joining the gang is Thomas Sabin, awkward, geeky goth kid on the surface, witch and mind-reader underneath. Let's just get this out there: Thomas is CUTE!

And of course, book's namesake character, the infamous Anna Dressed in Blood.

"Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story"

Ok, you're sold already, aren't you? Great! If you want to know what amazon.com has to say about this awesome (here I go again...) book, just click right here.

The sequel, Girl of Nightmares, is equally awesome, but I won't talk about it here because to do so I'd have to spoil the ending of book 1 for you all, which in my book (haha, geddit? I'm so punny) is bordering on sin.

Kendare Blake is an amazing author and a lovely person; I couldn't help myself -- just had to send her an email to tell her how IN LOVE I am with Cas -- and she was sweet enough to reply. I've found, to my half-surprise, that authors actually really enjoy receiving emails from crazy teens gushing about their awesomeness (well, now that I think about it, who wouldn't? I know I would, if I ever write anything gush-worthy) and so long as you don't ramble for tooooooo long, and say something smart that your english teacher would be proud of, fan mail is generally well-received. That's my experience anyway. I know if I ever published a book I'd LOVE to be emailed about it (hint hint...) and, narcissist I am, I'd save every single one :)

Rating: 5/5

Genre(s): Paranormal, Horror, YA, Supernatural

If anyone out there has read either of these and wants to talk about it, drop me a line:

readerwritercookiebaker[at]gmail[dot]com

One of my best friends is reading it, but she's not far enough in to talk about it without ruining stuff yet ;) And there's only so long that Kendare Blake will put up with me, haha.

So long, my pretties. Until next time! xoxoxo