TRANSFER STUDENT is the latest novel from Laura A. H.
Elliott and will release on Amazon and Barnes & Noble March 20th. Here’s a
little bit about the novel and an excerpt written from Ashley’s POV about her
obsession with Rhoe’s best friend, Yuke. Be sure to read to the end
to enter to win the EBOOK GIVEAWAY and this week’s SWAG!
Two Worlds––Two Teens––One Wish
Geek Rhoe and Surfer 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 Ashley’s conflicting feelings about her predatory best
frenemy Tiffany, throws Ashley’s 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 an accident killed him. 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––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. How far would you go for
someone you love?
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.
He’s that hot.
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 EBOOK here today! Just follow @Laurawriting and tweet: [leave
a comment here with your link-- Winner announced here tomorrow!]
TRANSFER STUDENT by @Laurawriting
RELEASE DAY 3/20! Blog Tour & Giveaway! #teenreads #scifi #romance #ya http://wp.me/P1J9jx-bs
THAT’S NOT ALL:
Every
week all comments are entered to win some great swag too! THIS WEEK’S SWAG:
EXPEDITION TO THE STARS 3-D MODEL, an IN-N-OUT Burger T-SHIRT, signed
bookmarks, Griffith Park Observatory postcards, real meteorite fragments, Space
Shuttle Commemorative playing cards! Check out the weekly swag here: http://wp.me/P1J9jx-bs
THIS
WEEK’S GIVEAWAY OPEN UNTIL MARCH 19! 6PM PST. 1 swag winner will be picked.
Open internationally!
Laura loves writing about enchanted road trips, birthday gifts
that are out of this world, and alien romance while eating lots of popcorn.
She’s the author of Winnemucca, a small-town fairy tale inspired by her
life-long love of a little-known town, Avenal, CA, and her equal love of
enchanted teenage road trips. 13 on Halloween is the first book in the Teen
Halloween Series. 14 on Halloween, book 2 in the Teen Halloween series, will be
released in the summer of 2012. Her new release, TRANSFER STUDENT will be
available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble March 20th.
To find out where in the world Laura is and more about her
upcoming books, visit her blog Laurasmagicday: http://laurasmagicday.wordpress.com/
and friend her on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Laura.A.H.Elliott...
If Twitter is your thing she's @Laurawriting.
Or, drop her a line at elliwrite [at] yahoo [dot] com.
Laura is a plume-carrying member of THE PARANORMAL PLUME SOCIETY, and
is also a member of The YA INDIE
CARNIVAL & THE PACIFIC
NORTHWEST YA AUTHORS as well as a member of the SCBWI.
