Ruined

Ruined: A Novelby Paula Morris

Rebecca couldn't feel more out of place in New Orleans, where she comes to spend the year while her dad is traveling. She's staying in a creepy old house with her aunt. And at the snooty prep school, the filthy-rich girls treat Rebecca like she's invisible. Only gorgeous, unavailable Anton Grey seems to give Rebecca the time of day, but she wonders if he's got a hidden agenda. Then one night, in Lafayette Cemetery, Rebecca makes a friend. Sweet, mysterious Lisette is eager to talk to Rebecca, and to show her the nooks and crannies of the city. There's just one catch: Lisette is a ghost.   A ghost with a deep, dark secret, and a serious score to settle.   As Rebecca learns more from her ghost friend -- and as she slowly learns to trust Anton Grey -- she also uncovers startling truths about her own history. Will Rebecca be able to right the wrongs of the past, or has everything been ruined beyond repair? (goodreads.com)

Ruined is a book I have had on my wishlist forever. Almost forever, anyhow, since it originally came out in 2009. It's one of those books I placed there with a note to wait for the paperback version. It sounded like a delightful ghost story and I was very curious about it. I never ended up picking it up though, there was always just one more book I wanted to get before I bought this one. Lately it's shown up on a couple of blogs I read religiously, one of with was Books & Other Thoughts. I made a note to pick it up the next time I was wandering a store (if they had it in stock).Oddly, when I went to the Montreal Book Blogger meet-up, I was lucky enough to get a copy of another Paula Morris book, Dark Souls. I had mistakenly thought that was a sequel to this one, so I went out and looked up Ruined  in hardcover on Book Depository and lucked out with a cheap price! I waited for it to arrive and then read it the day I got it.I sort of wish I waited to read this book in the fall. 30C, sunny weather isn't the best time to curl up with a ghost story. I would have enjoyed the autumn atmosphere outside my window as I read about Rebecca and her ghostly encounters, but that didn't take much away from the story itself, not at all!I guess I'll have to visit New Orleans at some point, even though it's not high on my list of places I want to go, because of all the ghost stories that are set in that location. There must be something gothic and mysterious about the place to have so many authors set their creepy stories there. Also - seafood! I love it and they have it. Yum!Ruined felt like an older Nancy Drew-slash-Windswept type story. Mystery, teenagers, potential love interest... but in the old fashion way that stories like this were written when I was a teen. None of that instant-love, dying without you sort of stuff from today. It was a mystery with ghosts and it was a really good story. The focus was on Rebecca and her ability to see ghosts with danger out there and secrets to uncover. I truly enjoyed trying to figure out the secrets of the rich folk around the town.I thought the ending was slightly cliche (if only I could figure out short keys for accents on this macbook!), but it went with the flow of the story so I wasn't too disappointed. I knew once I'd finished this book that I was ready for more, so I picked up Dark Souls immediately after I closed the cover of Ruined!