Anna Dressed in Blood

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Cas Lowood is a ghost hunter, charged with dispatching harmful spirits. When one of his regular informants gives him a tip about a murderous ghost called Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas and his housewitch mother pack up and move to Thunder Bay in Ontario, Canada.

When things get messy when Anna kills one of Cas's classmates but spares him, leading him to wonder why she did it. Now finding himself with an unwanted group of teenage ghost busters desperate to help him, Cas has to stop Anna before she kills anyone else. But things aren't always what they seem...

Tropes used in Anna Dressed in Blood include:
  • Abusive Parents: Anna's mother and her soon to be step-father
  • All Witches Have Cats: Cas's mother is a Wicca, and she has a cat that serves to "smell" ghosts; its name is Tybalt.
  • Alpha Bitch: Subverted with Carmel, the "queen bee" of the school, but just as sweet as her name.
  • Artifact of Doom: Strangely enough... The Athame
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Anna's mother cursed her but didn't realize that by saying Anna's spirit could never leave or have company, it inadvertently cause her to kill every person who entered.
  • Best Served Cold: Cas has spent the last several years since his father's death trying to become a good enough ghost hunter to track down the ghost that killed his father and kill it.
  • Boy Meets Ghost: Even the author said is "Your typical Boy Meets Girl"...just that the girl is a murder ghost. Very typical.
  • Black Magic: Anna's mother used it to curse Anna.
  • Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress: Anna Dressed in Blood wears the white dress she died in - covered in her own blood
  • Bilingual Bonus: Anna Taloni; Finnish for "Anna's House" in a very possessive way. The spell that Anna's mother used for her Deal with the Devil was in Finnish, as well.
  • Cool Old Guy: Thomas's grandfather definitely fits.
  • Couldn't Find a Pen: The note Daisy sends Cas to get him to investigate Anna was written in his own blood.
  • Culture Clash: The Spanish boarder at Anna's house had a different idea of what was appropriate for a young girl to wear than Anna's Finnish mother.
  • Cute Ghost Girl: Anna falls under this. When she's NOT possessed and killing people, that is.
  • Cute Witch: Cas's mother, especially when she was younger.
  • Deal with the Devil: Anna's mother
  • Deliberately Monochrome / Splash of Color: The cover of the first book, which is entirely in grayscale except for the splashes of red.
  • Disappeared Dad: Cas's father died fighting a ghost.
  • Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Anna
  • Embarrassing First Name: Cas, whose full name is "Theseus Cassio Lowood", siting his mother's love of Shakespeare and his father's love of Greek Mythology as the sources of his unfortunate name.
  • Evil Detecting Cat: Tybalt
  • Gender Blender Name: Cas's informant, Rudy Bristol, who is often referred to by his nickname, Daisy.
  • Haunted House: Well, duh.
  • Hippie Parents: Cas and Carmel both joked about this being the reason for their names. With Cas, it's mostly true.
  • Hollywood Voodoo: Averted, hard.
  • Immigrant Parents: Anna's family was originally from Finland, and the traditions of their home country are what caused the rift between Anna and her mother.
  • I Want My Beloved to be Alive/Heroic Sacrifice: Anna sacrifices her existence in order to save Cas and his gang, plus his mother and Thomas's grandfather, from the same monster that killed Cas's father
  • Jerk Jock: Mike and his gang.
  • Lust Object: Anna was this to her soon-to-be step father, who clearly wanted to get married to her mother just to get the right to have "all" of her, including Anna. He even lusted for Anna while smelling a piece of her white dress
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Tybalt, Prince of Cats who ends up dead.
  • Memento MacGuffin: The Athame, the knife Cas uses to kill ghosts and which used to belong to his dad.
  • Mind Probe: Thomas does this to Cas on his first day, implanting the term Trojan Army in his head to refer to a group of jocks.
  • Perky Goth: Daisy
  • Psychic Nosebleed: Thomas can get them if he does too much with his mind reading abilities.
  • Ritual Magic: Used a couple of times. First to help free Anna from the curse and also to try to get rid of the monster that killed Cas's father
  • Sequel Hook:

Thomas: Where...Where do you think she went?
Cas: Maybe you and Carmel can help me figure it out.