Okay, I’m just going to insert a quick two cents right here. I have been waiting for this book for weeks. This is going to be EPIC! Now on to Laura’s greatness. – Fisher

Two Worlds • Two Teens • One Wish

Rhoe and Ashley would never be friends.

Even if they lived on the same planet.

But, they’ll become so much more.

They’ll transfer.

Earthling Ashley’s world revolves around winning daily popularity contests at Beverly Hills High School and surfing competitions with sweet scholarship prizes that will finally help her break free of her control-freak mother. Ashley never loses. Ashley never wishes on stars. But that changes when her senior class takes a field trip to the Griffith Observatory where conflicting feelings about her predatory best frenemy Tiffany causes Ashley to throw away her own carefully-crafted Queen of B.H.H.S. title under the bus.

Meanwhile on planet Retha, Rhoe misses his dad, loves his mom’s home-cooked Glechy crag with a side of ory sauce, is desperate to heal his sick brother and wants more than anything to win The Retha New Invention Competition. He and his best friend Yuke have worked for the past two years constructing the teleporting telescope Rhoe started building with his dad before he died in an airboarding accident. Rhoe’s never kissed a girl. Rhoe’s hero is the eccentric physicist, Ramay. But that changes when the telescope teleports Rhoe across the universe with an unintended side effect, Ashley and Rhoe transfer. They swap lives when they make the same wish at the same time.

Popular-surfer-turned-boy-geek alien Ashley must handle life on Retha as Rhoe complete with webbed feet, low-gravity, and an obsession with Yuke, all the while being hunted by Rethan spies and resenting her hairy, flat chest. Boy-geek-turned-popular-surfer Rhoe must fit in at Beverly Hills High School as Ashley, compete in The Laguna Beach Invitational without becoming shark food, dodge boys’ affections, cool his preoccupation with Tiffany and his new body, on his quest to find the healing rocks he believes will save his brother’s life.

If only it were that simple. Some wishes can’t come true. Some have to.

EXCERPT:

Yuke catches up to me. We walk side-by-side in silence through the Golden Meadow. The airboard launch, a sort of gigantic upside-down slide, peeks over a row of Truffula Trees.

“Listen, there are three things you have to remember about soaring. You’ll never soar if your mind is on the ground. Put it up on The Ridge,” Yuke says, pointing to a purple-blue mountain ahead of us. “Rhoe taught me that.”

The way he says Rhoe I know it’s happened. He knows. He really knows I’m not Rhoe, I’m…Ashley. It’s sunk in. Finally. I stop walking and can hardly breathe. It’s the first time he’s ever seen the real me, and his gaze warms me down to my frog feet. Yuke spots the question in my eyes.

“The Ridge of No Return,” he says with a small smile, “It’s the prime place to catch air. But beware The Devil’s Grip. Soar too high and you’ll be caught in The Grip and lost to The Other Side. Forever.”

He misreads the question in my eyes. Again. I shiver thinking about The Grip and dying in the mythic ice and snow of The Other Side. I stare at my hideous frog feet, my peds. I don’t care about The Ridge. There’s only one person I care about. One boy I’ll never have. Yuke.

“What else?” I ask, peering deeper into Yuke’s alien eyes.

“You’ve got to feel the beat of the wind in your peds. Surrender to the air. And know, deep in your hearts, no one is its master.”

I hear and don’t hear every word Yuke says. For the first time in my life I can’t speak. I can’t take my eyes off Yuke, now that he knows I’m not Rhoe. He wouldn’t be telling his best friend, an Astral, how to airboard unless he knows I’m Ashley, someone who doesn’t know much about soaring.

“Your catchers will always stop you if you fall,” Yuke says, filling the silence between us. He raises his arms above his head. Delicate wings expand out from under his arms. Thin pinkish-purple skin stretches over delicate, long bones. No feathers at all. Just smooth, glimmering skin. And it’s crazy. A week ago I wouldn’t even look twice at a guy with a big nose, but now, I’m hot for an alien. With wings.

I have to touch him. It’s beyond wanting to. The way Yuke spreads his wings makes his pecs flare and his biceps seize. He’s beyond gorgeous. The way his sheer wings take to the breeze makes Yuke more unreal than he already is to me. He’s everything I never wanted and everything I can’t live without. It feels like we’re the only souls in the universe. The look in his golden exotic eyes melts my ability to stay away from him.

“You can’t be real,” I say taking a few steps closer to him, holding my hand out to touch his wing. Waiting for him to let me. To know it’s OK. He flexes and lets his head fall back a little inviting my touch. I lay my alien fingers on his smooth taught skin, and run them over his wing’s thin hollow bones. My eyes fill with tears. His wings flutter in a breeze. He’s beautiful.

Yuke sticks his chest out and when he drops his arms his catchers vanish back into his biceps. “I can’t let you soar. Not now,” he says, the crowd cheers just beyond the trees.

Only then do I remember where we are. What we’re here to do. A band begins to play a set of songs. The crowd beyond the row of trees cheers again and again.

“I have to. I’m doing this for Rhoe,” I say.

Yuke puts his hand on my shoulder. I shudder.

“And for me,” I say.

Yuke’s golden eyes focus only on mine, on the Earthling inside of this alien body.

“And for you,” I say, feeling the beat of my hearts in my throat. “We’re going to win this damn thing.”

GIVEAWAY: Here’s how to enter to win a TRANSFER STUDENT BEACH BAG filled with a signed paperback copy of WINNEMUCCA & 13 ON HALLOWEEN, and signed TRANSFER STUDENT bookmarks:

1. 1. follow @Laurawriting and
2. 2. tweet:

Two Worlds-Two Teens-One Wish #TRANSFERSTUDENT #ebook bday get ur copy 2day! #ya #scifi #romance [include amazon link]

8 winners, open Internationally until 3/24!

To find out more about Laura & her books visit Laurasmagicday.

Check out Laura’s Playlist for Transfer Student!! Dang, dude, it rivals mine in awesomeness! *wink, wink*

But wait! There’s more, Bob!

Tell us what’s behind door number one! Well, when any of our lovely readers comments on any of the carnival blogger’s posts, they are automatically entered for the most fantastico of prize packs!!! What?? Get out of here! That’s right, the winner will receive the following  just for being awesome, oh, and for commenting, of course:

Kindle copy of Every Last Kiss by Courtney Cole
Kindle copy of The Understorey by Fisher Amelie
Kindle digitally-signed edition of Winnemucca by Laura A. H. Elliott and a Winnemucca signed Coffee Mug.
Kindle copy of Breathe by Abbi Glines along with an autographed canvas Breathe tote.
Kindle copy of Solstice by PJ Hoover
Kindle copy of Between by Cyndi Tefft
Kindle copy of PineLight by Jillian Peery
Kindle copy of Filter by Gwenn Wright
Kindle copy of Eternal Eden by Nicole Williams
Kindle copy of Fallen Eden by Nicole Williams
Kindle copy of Soul Quest by Amy Maurer Jones
Kindle copy of Run and Hide by Patti Larsen (YA thrillers, 1 and 2 in a series of 4)
Kindle copy of Fractured by Cheri Schmidt
Kindle copy of Warriors of the Cross by T.R. Graves
Kindle copy of Diary of a Duct Tape Zombie, Beergarden, Bees of St. John, Mushrooms, Whistles and NEW RELEASE Into The Ruins by Rachel Coles

Oh mahla!!!! Please, say that I’m also eligible for this, Bob! I’m not? Oh phooey! Those prizes are dyn-o-mite!

Now, for Laura’s most hilarious interview!

You and me. We’re stars of Courtney Cole’s next big historical. Let me set it up for you. We’re sisters. We live together in a fabulous flat in London. Tell me, what era do we live in, who are our leading men (dead or alive/fictional or non), and what’s our major conflict? p.s. Dying to see who you pick for me.

Fisher, you crack me up! This is awesome. Ok…Daniel Craig dictates that the time is now, baby. Forget the riots and the unrest, we freaking thrive on political unrest. We are involved in an intrigue that will bring down the royal family once and for all. My homey, Daniel, finds out just exactly what the monarchy has been up to for the last two hundred years [something about secret societies and lots and lots of money and a foot fetish] and why they need to be brought down. But, you are the one having a secret affair with Prince William and in the end you have to pick whether you will follow your head and possibly have Prince William to yourself forever thus bringing down the monarchy, or follow your heart, destroy the evidence you’ve risked your life for and let William and Kate live happily ever after, with you relegated to seeing William in snippets on the Tele.

Oh, the scandal! I do emo well. I’ll settle for watching Willy from the tele. Can’t do that to Kate and all.

13 On Halloween busts out in September.  What is it all about and where did you get the inspiration to write it?

Busts out is right! This story came to me very quickly. I guess I blame it on walking the same foggy streets as Doc Ricketts and John Steinbeck. There was something literary in the air in Pacific Grove, CA where I lived when I wrote 13 on Halloween. Doc and John would get more laughs than literary enlightenment from this story. It’s a romp. Set on a girl’s Halloween birthday when her birthday wish goes horribly wrong.

Twelve-year-old Roxie wants to be like Adrianne, the peacock [popular girl] in class who gets everything she wants––a trampoline, a flock to prowl around the mall with, and most especially invitations to parties. When Roxie invites the peacocks in the eighth grade to her birthday party on Halloween, they all come. Roxie’s thrilled until they decide they want to celebrate her birthday in a way Roxie never expects––in her attic with the lights out and a pact to swear to never tell a living soul what happens there. Roxie gets everything she’s always wanted, except what she wants most of all––her old life back.

How did you begin writing? And was it something you were born to do?

I began writing because I thought my husband had died. He didn’t! But, there were three non-walking casts involved. I’ll have to tell you the whole story over a glass of wine sometime. It’s hilarious. Along with recuperating, and painting my laundry room, I decided to pick up a pen and write a story that my mom had told me about my grandmother. It’s a good one tooJ Also, I was inspired by reading children’s books aloud to my kids. I really fell in love with children’s fiction then. I credit Jim Trelease and his READ ALOUD HANDBOOK for planting the love of fiction in my heart that grew into my stories. He came to speak at my kids’ Cooperative Nursery School in South Pasadena and blew me away with his talk about how stories can change lives. My girls and I read aloud to each other until they went away to college.

This October, the ladies of The Paranormals Book Tour are heading to Savannah for a fan meet and greet and signing. I plan on cramming us all into a Karaoke bar. Tell me, who goes up first, what song do they butcher and why? If you’re not up first, when you’re eventually shoved up there, more than likely schnokered, you cheeky monkey, what song do you sing? And why?

You’re up first, my friend, and I’m guessing you don’t butcher any songs at all. You sing something by Siouxsie and The Banshees PERFECTLY and I’m up there––yes schnokered FOR SURE––because that would be the ONLY way I’d get up there evah, and I sing Cherish by Madonna, because I’m so drunk you all think it would be fun to screw with me so I sing the first song you all put up on the screen and I freaking GO FOR IT. Youtube embarrassment ensues for, oh ten years. My bad.

Tell us something sensational about yourself that you’re secretly dying for your fans to know about you but couldn’t say anything before as it would seem like bragging but now have the opportunity because I just gave you an open forum. A word of advice? Say something scandalous. It will more than likely earn you new readers or, at the very least, a terrible, rotten, fabulous reputation.

I’ve been in a major motion picture with Tom Cruise & Meryl Streep. Robert Redford directed me. It was all very fabulous. The movie was Lions For Lambs. It happened while I was working in the LA Times newsroom. I was by default an extra, although there were plenty of paid professionals dressed much better than any of us “real” LA Times folks all over the place. Robert Redford’s production company fixed up our newsroom so it was freaking glowing. They painted and hung big screen TVs everywhere. Anyway, at one point during the day I was working on a story and a lady came up to me and started brushing my hair and I jumped. She said, “Oh, you’re real?” And I laughed a little bit and said “Yes.” I can’t tell you what it’s like to have someone ask you that question. At work. In LA. It was hilarious. As it turned out, Meryl took her spot at my desk all day for the scene they were shooting. So completely surreal. I kept fighting the urge to be like, Hey, Meryl, remember in The Devil Wear’s Prada and you…I mean it’s freaking Meryl Streep. Everyone thinks they know her, right? Meryl seemed super-stressed out. Maybe she was horrified by my desk. There was a lot of knitting going on by the extras. All of us in the newsroom got a kick out of the whole thing even though it was a challenge to get our work done. And we scored some great food because the movie catered lunch for us. So yes, I will sign autographs for my famous top of my head that you see in the actual footage that was used in the movie. I love LA.

Excuse me. I’ll be right back. *Searches ‘Lions For Lambs’ on Netflix* Holey Moley! Can’t wait to search for Laura’s head!

Thanks to the amazing Laura for being such an amazing sport and for providing us with the most inventive answers! You’re a clever minx, Laura! I really enjoyed hosting you! It was fate, I tell you!

Now, readers, comment. Comment and move on to the next because you’re in for a real treat!

The Amazing Dani Snell
The Incredible Patti Larsen
The Talented Courtney Cole
The Witty Wren Emerson
The Accomplished Nicole Williams
The Clever Laura Elliott
The Skillful Amy Jones
The Staggering P.J. Hoover
The Brilliant Alicia McCalla
The Resplendent Heather Cashman
The Lustrous Abbi Glines
The Polished Cheri Schmidt
The Inventive Cidney Swanson
The Radiant Rachel Coles
The Gifted T.R. Graves
The Phenomenal Cyndi Tefft