What happened in Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake - Recaptains

The basics

Title: Anna Dressed in Blood

Author: Kendare Blake

Series: Anna #1

- Anna Dressed in Blood (2011)
- Girl of Nightmares (2012)

Add it: Goodreads

Goodreads Summary:

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. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: 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.

Yet she spares Cas's life.

Read a full summary of Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake below. If you can’t remember what happened in Anna Dressed in Blood and you need a refresher, then you’re in the right place.

What happened in Anna Dressed in Blood?

• Cas (or Theseus Cassio Lowood… jesus) is a teenage ghosthunter. His own father and other ancestors were ghosthunters too so he’s simply following the family tradition. He sues a weapon called an athame, which allows him to dispose of ghosts’ spirits.
• Cas travels around the country with his mother who is a witch. His father died a while back and Cas is trying to find the ghost that killed him.
• Cas and his mother head to Ontario, where there’s talk of a dangerous ghost called Anna.
• Cas enrols in school and goes about acting like a teenager, while also trying to find out more about Anna. A girl called Carmel tells Cas that Anna is a local legend. Carmel invites Cas to a party.
• Carmel tells Cas the history of Anna. She was murdered years and years ago, and wears a white dress that’s covered in blood. Sounds about normal for a ghost tbh.
• Carmel is super popular and at least three other guys have a crush on her. Chase, Mike, and Will in particular. They don’t like Cas because they think the new guy is making moves.
• The trio offer to show Cas the place where Anna died in order to scare him. Obviously, Cas is a ghost hunter so this is nothing for him. Unfortunately, Mike is killed by Anna though. So that backfired.
• Anna spares Cas, which Cas finds strange. He decides to find a way to speak to Anna and figure out why she is different to the other ghosts he has encountered.
• Cas’s mother refuses to help him because it sounds like a dangerous plan, so Cas has to go to a clairvoyant called Thomas.
• Thomas helps Cas speak to Anna. Cas needs to find out why Anna hasn’t passed on before she kills someone else.
• The other students want Anna to die (again) because she killed Mike and is dangerous. I don’t think they know how to go about this though since Anna is already a ghost.
• Thomas and Cas figure out that Anna’s mother killed and cursed her. Anna is now trapped in her house. Anna is also joined by another ghost, and this super evil one turns out to be the ghost that killed Cas’s father. It’s called the Obeahman.
• The Obeahman torments Anna in order to get to Cas.
• Thomas and Cas’s mother do a spell that lets Anna leave the house.
• Anna turns out to be super friendly, actually. It was mainly the Obeahman who was being a dick.
• Anna helps Cas defeat the Obeahman. Cas draws Anna’s blood to lure the Obeahman out and into a trap. Cas’s mother sets the trap.
• Anna destroys the Obeahman once and for all. We think. She also dies in the process.
• Cas wonders where the Obeahman has gone and whether he’s really dead-dead. He wonders if Anna is trapped with him, which would be terrible. He starts plotting to access the spirit world to find her.

That was our recap of what happened in Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake. Check out our recap list for more plot summaries, and if you can’t find what you need you can request a recap here!