Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

I'm off on a trip to Canada, so no Follow Friday today!  Instead you get an extra review from my Cybils readings:

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.

Blake is back, and so are her wonderful characters.  Cas is really the star in this book, he grows up a lot and we learn a lot about who he is and what he stands for.  He also retains his snark, which brings just enough lightness to some pretty heavy scenes.  Thomas and Carmel are along for the ride, and it was sweet to see their relationship morph as they tried to find their way in it and around Cas.  There's also this great new character named Jestine who I totally loved.  That's good, because you really have to love the characters to love this book because most of it is all about them.  Plot-wise the first half of the book just didn't work for me.  It was very slow, very angsty, and not quite put together, the pacing a total mess.  The book really hits its stride about halfway through and gets better from there, but I don't know if it's enough to excuse the first part.  The first half of the book really felt like "middle book syndrome", while the last part of the book scared the crap out of me.  The other issue I have with this book is that it's definately a series book.  You can't read it without having read Anna Dressed in Blood or it makes little sense.