Girl of Nightmares Winner!

Girl of Nightmares Winner!

Kendare Blake and Booksnob have teamed up to giveaway one fabulous copy of Girl of Nightmares to a international follower.
I am excited to announce that the winner is:

Diayll from North Carolina!

Congrats.  I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did.

If you didn't win, don't fret you can order the book from Amazon.

Blake has written a creative conclusion to Anna Dressed in Blood. Girl of Nightmares will keep you up late at night and have Anna entering your dreams at night. Girl of Nightmares is a nail biting, page turner, which will have you on the edge of your seat rooting for Cas and Anna. 

August Author in the Spotlight Wrap-Up + Giveaway

August Author in the Spotlight Wrap-Up + Giveaway

Anna Dressed in Blood Giveaway Ends tonight at midnight!

Girl of Nightmares Giveaway Ends September 9th at midnight!

The last day of August is so bittersweet.  Summer winds down to a close, school starts, the leaves begin falling, the days get shorter and the nights get colder.  So many reasons to celebrate August and to celebrate Kendare Blake, the Minneosta author in the spotlight this month.

The are two contests running for Kendare Blake's books.  Both are international.

Click here to enter:  Anna Dressed in Blood Giveaway
and here:  Girl of Nightmares Giveaway

Please check out my book reviews on Anna Dressed in Blood and the just released sequel, Girl of Nightmares. Blake has created a fast paced paranormal romance that is a unique and entertaining page turner.  Both books are great ghost stories with interesting and creative characters.  The scenes Blake creates are vivid and the characters are powerful and strong.  They are so much fun to read.

Book Review:  Anna Dressed in Blood
Book Review:  Girl of Nightmares

Check out the author interview with Kendare Blake.  She talks about her Minnesota connections, the newest book she is writing and the books she likes to read.  Check it out!

Kendare Blake Author Interview

As August ends I would like to thank Kendare Blake for being the August Minnesota Author in the Spotlight here on Booksnob.  She is a excellent, creative writer and I am glad I got this chance to work with her.  Her books are entertaining and fun to read.  Please visit Kendare at her website:  www.kendareblake.com  and read her books!  

Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

Cas Lowood, the ghost hunter, and friends are back in the sequel to Anna Dressed in Blood.  Cas is missing Anna so much he thinks he is going crazy.  He is seeing her in unlikely places.  Images of Anna suffering in Hell are tormenting Cas, day and night, as she becomes his Girl of Nightmares.  His friends Thomas and Carmel try to get Cas to move on and live his life.  But Cas knows something is wrong with Anna and he feels her calling to him for help from the other side.

Anna sacrificed herself so that Cas and his friends could live. Cas knows that Anna needs help and he plans to return the favor and get her out of hell.  So he enlists the help of his friends and they travel to England to unlock the secrets of the athame and the old order who forged it, hoping to find a way to save Anna.

Blake has written a creative conclusion to Anna Dressed in Blood. Girl of Nightmares will keep you up late at night and have Anna entering your dreams at night.  Blake introduces Justine, a new teen character who challenges Cas.  Justine was a positive addition to the ghost hunting crew.

The scenes Blake creates are vivid and the characters are powerful and strong.  My favorite part of the book is when the crew cross through the suicide forest in Scotland.  I loved Carmel, who is a regular teen that is passionate about protecting the people she cares about and fights for the rights of others.  When I finished Girl of Nightmares, I went to sleep and dreamed about it.  I love it when a book enters your subconscious and takes you deeper into creative thought.

Girl of Nightmares is a nail biting, page turner, which will have you on the edge of your seat rooting for Cas and Anna.

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Cas Lowood is a ghost hunter following in his deceased father's footsteps.  Cas has his father's athame (dagger), which he uses to dispatch murderous ghosts to the afterlife.  He feels it in his blood that this is what he is meant to do so Cas travels around the country searching for evil spirits who are taking their revenge on the living.
Cas travels with his mother, who just happens to be a witch, and their cat, who can see evil spirits and warns them of impending danger.

Cas moves with his mother to Thunder Bay, Ontario on a tip that a ghost named Anna is particularly dangerous and has killed the many innocent people who have entered her home.  He plans to learn about her, find out her weaknesses and then kill her (again).  The legend states that Anna was on her way to a dance in a white dress and she never made it.  Her body was found with her throat slit and she was dressed in blood.  Cas meets his match when he meets Anna and one act of compassion puts them on the road to forging an unlikely relationship.

Blake has created a fast paced paranormal romance that is a unique and entertaining page turner.   When Cas meets Anna for the first time he is in awe of her presence and beauty when Anna gives him a break and decides not to kill him.  I love that Anna is a powerful, ass kicking, murderous ghost who is just trying to understand her existence and remember why she can't leave her house.  Cas, like the reader, is drawn to Anna and her story.  Cas finds himself falling in love with the dead girl he is trying to kill.

The whole time I read Anna Dressed in Blood I kept thinking that this would make a great movie.  Seriously someone needs to buy the film rights as a movie could be a whole lot scarier then the book.   I didn't read Anna for the scare factor (it was a nail biter), I read it because I love a good ghost story.  Blake has characterized this book as teen horror and I confess I am not a fan of horror books but because of Anna, I am rethinking that.  Anna Dressed in Blood is a great ghost story with interesting and creative characters.  Anna is a bit gory and gross with the main character covered in blood and dead bodies that talk while trying to kill you.

Reading Anna Dressed in Blood is bloody good fun.

Kendare Blake Author Interview + Giveaway

Kendare Blake Author Interview + Giveaway

Kendare Blake is the August, author in the spotlight here on Booksnob and she has graciously agreed to answer some questions about her life and her best-selling young adult horror books, Anna Dressed in Blood and recently released, Girl of Nightmares.

Welcome Kendare:

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself? A little about myself…I was adopted from South Korea when I was 7 months old. My least favorite class ever was Statistics, because even though I understood it, I seemed to suck on the tests. Ridiculous. I have a horse named Lassie who was recently dressed as an Indian pony, and I’m pretty fond of fried foods.
1. 
   
2. What inspired you to write Anna Dressed in Blood and Girl of Nightmares?  I wanted to write something gory and dark. Somewhere in the back of my mind, Cas Lowood raised his hand and said, “I got this.”

3. Usually an author puts some of his own life experiences in the book.  Did you do that?  Do you have anything in common with your characters? In common with my characters? Yes, I frequently kill and stuff bodies in my basement. No wait. I don’t even have a basement. Truthfully, not really. Cas and I share a sense of humor, but that’s about it. Thomas has my best friend’s car.

4.  Do you believe that ghosts are real or are they the work of a creative imagination? I don’t know. I’m not willing to fully believe or disbelieve. If they do exist, it’s sort of sad, unless hauntings are like ghost vacations. Like, they’re somewhere really cool most of the time, but they can come back to jerk us around if they want to.

5. Why did you set the books in Thunder Bay, Canada and places in and around Minnesota?  What is your MN connection? I grew up in Minnesota, and lived there while I wrote Anna Dressed in Blood. Thunder Bay was close enough to drive to for location research, and had the best ghost stories. I also lived in London, which is featured in Girl of Nightmares.

6. Do you like to read?  What authors or books influence you? Of course I read. I read a lot. But sort of slowly. Just about everything influences me somehow. I was really taken by Milan Kundera and Bret Easton Ellis when I was young. And Caitlin R Kiernan always rocks my socks.

7. When will the 3^rd book in the Anna series be released?  Do you have a title yet?  There is no third book in the Anna series. Girl of Nightmares is the end. Next summer, I’ve got a new trilogy featuring Greek Mythology, called ANTIGODDESS. If you enjoy girls who can tear things apart with their bare hands (which I do), you might like it.

8. Tell us in one sentence why we should read the Anna Dressed in Blood and Girl of Nightmares?  Uh…because you need something to read and like entrails?
   
   

Thanks Kendare!

Thanks for having me! Great questions.

If you are interested in winning a copy of Anna Dressed in Blood, click here:  Anna Contest

If you are interested in winning a copy of Girl of Nightmares click here:  Nightmares contest

Enter to Win: Girl of Nightmares

Enter to Win:  Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

Kendare Blake is the August Author in the Spotlight here on Booksnob and she has graciously offered to give away a copy of  Girl of Nightmares, the second book in the Anna trilogy to Booksnob followers.   This contest is open internationally!
If you want to win a copy of Anna Dressed in Blood, the first book in the Anna trilogy enter here:  Anna Contest

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:
It's been months since the ghost of Anna Korlov opened a door to Hell in her basement and disappeared into it, but ghost-hunter Cas Lowood can't move on.

His friends remind him that Anna sacrificed herself so that Cas could live—not walk around half dead. He knows they're right, but in Cas's eyes, no living girl he meets can compare to the dead girl he fell in love with.

Now he's seeing Anna everywhere: sometimes when he's asleep and sometimes in waking nightmares. But something is very wrong...these aren't just daydreams. Anna seems tortured, torn apart in new and ever more gruesome ways every time she appears.

Cas doesn't know what happened to Anna when she disappeared into Hell, but he knows she doesn't deserve whatever is happening to her now. Anna saved Cas more than once, and it's time for him to return the favor.


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Enter to Win: Anna Dressed in Blood

Enter to Win:  Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Kendare Blake is the August Author in the Spotlight here on Booksnob and she has graciously offered to give away a copy of Anna Dressed in Blood, the first book in the Anna trilogy to Booksnob followers.   This contest is open internationally!

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:

Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story...

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder 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. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, 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, but now stained red and dripping 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.

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life.

Good Luck!

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August Hometown Track Author in the Spotlight

August Hometown Track Author in the Spotlight

It's August and time to bask in the warmth of the sun in the last month of summer.  Enjoy the lazy days of summer, watch the Olympics and root for your hometown heroes and teams.  This month on Booksnob, I am featuring a hometown author who gets a gold medal in Young Adult literature for her creative characters and storyline.  So in between watching your favorite athletes in the Olympics you will need to pick up a book by Kendare Blake and get hooked into a riveting trilogy.

Kendare Blake has written two books, Anna Dressed in Blood and Girl of Nightmares.
Here are the synopsis from Goodreads:

Anna Dressed in Blood
Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story... 
Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder 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. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, 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, but now stained red and dripping 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.

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life.

Girl of Nightmares:  To be Released August 7th.

It's been months since the ghost of Anna Korlov opened a door to Hell in her basement and disappeared into it, but ghost-hunter Cas Lowood can't move on. 

His friends remind him that Anna sacrificed herself so that Cas could live--not walk around half dead. He knows they're right, but in Cas's eyes, no living girl he meets can compare to the dead girl he fell in love with.

Now he's seeing Anna everywhere: sometimes when he's asleep and sometimes in waking nightmares. But something is very wrong...these aren't just daydreams. Anna seems tortured, torn apart in new and ever more gruesome ways every time she appears.

Cas doesn't know what happened to Anna when she disappeared into Hell, but he knows she doesn't deserve whatever is happening to her now. Anna saved Cas more than once, and it's time for him to return the favor. 

This month you can expect two book reviews, a contest, and an author interview.   The second book in the Anna trilogy, Girl of Nightmares is set to be released on August 7th.  Kendare is busily penning the 3rd book and promoting her 2nd. Visit Kendare Blake at her website:  http://kendareblake.com/


Keep checking in at Booksnob as August is going to be great a month!