Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Review - 

This book took me so long to read, seeing as it has taken me over 3 weeks to read, and I don't even know why!  I really enjoyed this book, particularly when it got to the end, and so I can only guess at why I kept putting off reading it.

Firstly, I really liked the characters.  When I first started this, I got the sense that there would be very few characters involved in the story-line, the author instead deciding to focus solely on the main character; this, however, was not the case.  Quickly characters were introduced and I soon found myself beginning to like them.  I particularly liked Anna, and very quickly felt myself sympathizing with her, and her story was an aspect that I felt was written very well.  

Another thing I loved was the plot.  I liked how the story was not as simple as it first looked, although this did mean it sometimes dragged on.  However, overall I really enjoyed the various plot twists and definitely didn't see them coming.  

Now onto the few bad comments I have, one of which is the lack of horror.  When I picked this up, I honestly was mainly looking for a horror book with bite, but I feel as though this didn't deliver this.  This may have been my fault, however I still would have liked for the book to have played more onto the scary element.

The other feature I would have liked to have seen more of was the romance.  I am aware that horror and romance don't really work well together, but I still think this should have been played on more.

So to end, I would likely recommend this book, but it was not one of my favourites, but I am still keen to read Girl of Nightmares in the future to see if my wishes are granted!

Quotes:

"Anna is nothing like I've ever seen before.... She's death itself, gruesome and senseless, and even when she's dressed in blood and veins I can't help but stare."
"And the game is a whole lot more dangerous this time around."
“I’ve seen most of what there is to be afraid of in this world, and to tell you the truth,
the worst of them are the ones that make you afraid in the light. The things that your eyes see plainly and can’t forget are worse than huddled black figures left to the imagination. Imagination has a poor memory; it slinks away and goes blurry. Eyes remember for much longer.” 
We’re not children, neither of us. We don’t believe in fairy tales. And if we did, who would we be? Not Prince Charming and Sleeping Beauty. I slice murder victims’ heads off and Anna stretches skin until it rips, she snaps bones like green branches into smaller and smaller pieces. We’d be the fricking dragon and the wicked fairy. I know that. But I still have to tell her.” 

Songs:

Alone Together - Fall Out Boy 
City of Angels - Thirty Seconds to Mars 
Cosmic Love - Florence and the Machine 

Other Books:

The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - This is one of my favourite books that I have ever read, and it 's a horror book, so I definitely suggest giving it a go!
Invisibility by David Levithan and Andrea Cremer - Despite the negative reviews, I quite liked this, and it kind of incorporates ghosts as the main character is invisible (as you can tell by the title) and impossible romance, so give it a try.
Looking for Alaska by John Green - I know this doesn't tackle ghosts as much, but it does deal with discovering how and why someone died, and it's a really good book!