Anna (Kendare Blake) Books in Order

The Anna books start with a boy who has turned ghost killing into the family business. Cas Lowood inherited the work from his father, who hunted the dead until a ghost killed him. Now Cas travels from place to place with his kitchen-witch mother and their cat, following local legends and putting down spirits that murder the living. That setup gives the series a road-trip feel even when the story settles into one especially haunted house.

Then Cas meets a ghost he cannot treat like just another job.

In Anna Dressed in Blood, he heads after Anna Korlov, a girl murdered in 1958 who still appears in the blood-soaked white dress she died in. Anna has torn apart nearly everyone who has entered her old home, so Cas expects a straightforward hunt. Instead, she spares him. That small break in the pattern opens the whole series up. Anna is terrifying, but she is also trapped, wronged, and far more human than Cas wants to admit.

The books work because Blake keeps the horror active while letting the characters feel like actual teenagers. Cas is competent, proud, funny, and more rattled than he likes to show. His friends Carmel and Thomas add skepticism, loyalty, and just enough ordinary life to keep the supernatural from floating away. The scares are bloody and the ghosts are mean, but the banter keeps the pages moving. The first book is as much a haunted house mystery as it is a romance, and that mix gives it a strong identity.

Girl of Nightmares widens the story after Anna vanishes into Hell to save Cas. He starts seeing her in dreams and waking visions, and what first looks like grief starts to seem like a genuine cry for help. The sequel pushes further into curses, old relics, and the ugly cost of obsession. Cas has to decide whether saving Anna is love, guilt, denial, or all three at once.

The series gets its power from that tension between hunter and haunted.

If you are wondering what kind of horror this is, think fast, emotional, and a little romantic, with plenty of gore around the edges. The ghosts are frightening, but the larger question is what violence leaves behind, in houses, in families, and in the people who survive it. There is also a real streak of tenderness under all the blood. These books are short enough to tear through quickly and rich enough to leave a mark, especially if you like supernatural stories that balance scares with heartbreak.