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 atheme, 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. She still wears the dress she wore in the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, it is 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.
©2011 Kendare Blake (P)2012 AudioGO
"Alas"
I really wanted to like this book because I have a hard time finding new good books for my high school library. Unfortuately for this book, I listened to it right after listening to Terry Prachett's "I Shall Wear Midnight," which is outstanding. "Anna" is just time-killing brain candy; although that's sufficient for some students. The reader of "Anna" focuses so much on pronunciation that he sounds robotic, and he's not very good at creating different voices. In short: don't expect much.
"Interesting story, performance almost ruined it."
It depends on whether or not you're able to get past the production and listen to the story.
His voice was distracting from the beginning and the production had a slight tin can quality. His character voices were all pretty bad. He couldn't even do a good second man's voice. Anna's voice was supposed to have a Finnish accent, but it sounded like a little girl with a lisp.