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“Twilight” is back from the dead.
It’s been more than a decade since the fourth (and supposedly final) novel in Stephanie Meyer’s vampire romance saga hit shelves, and eight years since the final movie in the five-film franchise that sucked in more than $3.3 billion at the global box office hit screens. But on Monday, Meyer announced that she’s releasing a fifth book this August — and the news sent Team Edward into a tizzy.
The new book, “Midnight Sun,” revisits the young-adult tale of star-crossed lovers Bella Swan (a human teen played by Kristen Stewart in the movies) and Edward Cullen (a century-old vampire played by Robert Pattinson who looks sort of like a high school boy) — but this time, the series that sold more than 120 million books world-wide will be told from Edward’s perspective, as opposed to Bella’s POV.
“I am very excited to finally, finally announce the release of Midnight Sun on Aug. 4,” Meyer said in a video shared on “Good Morning America” on Monday. “It’s a crazy time right now and I wasn’t sure it was the right time to put this book out, but some of you have been waiting for just so so long it didn’t seem right to make you wait any more.”
Meyer dished more about the 672-page book, which is being published by Hachette Book Group and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, in a USA Today interview. In fact, she’s been considering this title and concept for more than a decade.
“It’s definitely darker, and I would say more desperate. The stakes are way higher from (Edward’s) perspective,” she said.
Meyer also revealed some concern about how Twihards will react when they finally get a look inside the elusive Edward’s head. “I think people are not going to maybe have anticipated exactly what Edward was thinking and doing when he wasn’t on-screen, so to speak,” Meyer said. “I don’t know if it will be the Edward that they imagined. I think it might be an Edward that’s a lot different than that.”
Regardless, the announcement whet the booklust of Meyer’s legion of fans, with the author’s name and “Midnight Sun” trending on Twitter TWTR, -0.37% and topping Google GOOG, -0.64% searches on Monday — perhaps because it gave readers something to sink their teeth into besides more grim coronavirus updates.
The author shares the urge to escape reality, stating in a press release that she hopes the book lets fans “live in an imaginary world for a while.”
“There’s so much going on that’s negative and bad, and I can’t really do much about most of that,” Meyer also told USA Today. “But if I can give people something to be excited about, something to think about that’s not bad, then that’s a win.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has encouraged more people to curl up with a book lately, in fact. Here’s some of the most popular books flying off virtual and literal shelves since many Americans began to self-quarantine at home.
