First Simon Pulse edition September 2003 ™ and © 2003 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Regency Entertainment (USA) Inc., and Monarchy Enterprises B.V All rights reserved.
SIMON PULSE An imprint of Simon amp; Schuster Children's Publishing Division 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Designed by O'Lanso Gabbidon The text of this book was set in Berkeley Book.
Printed in the United States of America 10 987654321 Library of Congress Control Number 2003100466 ISBN 0-689-85522-2 I dedicate this book to Richard and Christie Finn, who have been both friends and supporters of my professional career for over fifteen years. M.
This book is for my eldest niece, Becky Peabody Estepp. Your sense of humor helps keep me sane. M. A. M.
PROLOGUE
What Has Gone Before…
1999: September 23. Journal entry one. I'm Liz Parker, and five days ago I died. After that, things got really weird…
Liz Parker was a relatively normal teenage girl, working at her parents' alien-themed diner, the Crashdown Cafe. Then came that fateful fall day when a gunman accidentally shot Liz during an argument with another customer. A boy Liz knew from high school, Max Evans, knelt beside her and put his hand over her bullet wound, healing her completely. But when Max ran away, and Liz saw a glowing silver handprint on her stomach, she knew she had to find out the truth.
Max soon told her the truth, an unbelievable story that would pull Liz and her friends into drama, danger, romance, and an interstellar conflict. Max and his friends were aliens…
July 1947: In the desert outside Roswell, New Mexico, an alien spaceship crashed to the ground. The government soon swooped in to quarantine the site, issuing a press release that the wreckage of a flying disk had been recovered. Hours later, the press release was rescinded, and the government claimed it was actually a weather balloon.