"Waiting On" Wednesday (4)

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill from Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases we're eagerly anticipating.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
Publishing date: September 27th, 2011
Goodreads

Mara Dyer doesn't believe life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there. It can.

She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed. There is.

She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love. She's wrong.

I love memory loss stories. They're always emotional and powerful, and I'm very excited about the potential supernatural twist on this one. 

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
Publishing date: August 30th, 2011
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.

I've never read a ghost story, and this seems like a really good way to start. Intriguing, mysterious, with the promise of its own mythology? Yes, please. Also, there's a spirit-sniffing cat. How awesome is that?

What books are you excited for?