Title: Careful (The Careful, Quiet, Invisible #1)
Author: Isobella Jade
Pub. Date: July 26, 2012
Find “Careful”:
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After Estella Montclair is killed in a texting and driving crash, what remains of her face and body is devastating. But not all of her has died. During the first month after her death, Estella’s spirit travels among her living friends and family. Her best friends Zara, Eva and Jett show her how pain and sorrow can break apart or strengthen a bond. She also sees for the first time that loss can spark revenge, catastrophe can come without warning, and we all have secrets. She wonders if her chance for love with Phoenix has passed her by, and if out of sight truly means out of mind. And maybe one day the girl who caused her death will admit her mistake. While adjusting to a new state of being, Estella struggles to face the limitations that come with death, but blossoms by recognizing she can still touch the lives of the people she once knew so well.
~Excerpt~
I didn’t sleep anymore; I simply lost the need to sleep. So, when the world around me was sleeping, sometimes I would travel through Willow Ridge and let the night air carry me until I could feel the first light of dawn.
Some nights I went to the track at school, even though there was snow on it. Like when I was alive, I would swish around and around for hours with the moon glowing down on me and reenact certain races I’d won or redo the ones I hadn’t.
Other nights, I’d take a trip through my favorite course. I’d swoop through the neighborhoods, making quick cuts through backyards and over fences, sometimes sliding down the snow piles at the side of the streets, and head towards Willow Lake Park. If I wasn’t too tired I’d run the three-mile loop on the trails at the lake, or I’d stroll out to the center of the iced-over lake and admire the blue-gray shadows dancing atop the crystalline ice on the slender branches of the weeping willow trees. From a distance the shadows of the iced branches looked like a pack of mammoths.
Then usually I’d skim over the frigid water and graze against the lake’s edge until I got to Maple Point. The numerous picnic tables and grills were blanketed in snow, like an isolated winter wonderland; it looked magical in the moonlight. Once I reached the large wooden playground, I’d start sprinting to my favorite Maple tree, the biggest one. Its figure made an upside-down rounded heart shape.
I’d start climbing up the ridges of the trunk of the Maple tree, brushing up against the bark and shaking a little snow off the branches as I zoomed up, gaining speed until I reached the top. From there, I would burst out of the tree like a cannon ball. I’d rocket higher and higher and higher until the porch lights from all the houses in Willow Ridge looked like tiny specks of glitter. In the darkness up there, there seemed to be no boundaries, just a great magnitude of sky that was endless and open. Cruising the vastness of the sky was exhilarating and a little frightening.
~Book Trailer~
~Giveaway~
~About the Author~
Isobella Jade is an author, petite model and a wizard of self-promotion. Her modeling memoir Almost 5’4″ is her personal memoir about being a shorter-than-average model in NYC, the ins and outs and highs and lows of striving to beat the odds. Her graphic novel Model Life was released in November 2009 and Short Stuff is her collection of on-the-job experiences that took place after Almost 5’4″ and includes modeling tips for shorter girls. Her most recent work is a new YA novel called Careful, the first book of the Careful, Quiet, Invisible series.
