Yes, I’m just as surprised as everyone else to see this news of a new book by Stephenie Meyer titled “The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella“! If they’d put it out two days later, I’d think it was April Fools. From StephenieMeyer.com (I’ve shortened this quote, to see the full thing visit her website) :
Surprise!
I have a new book coming out. It’s called The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. Well, it’s more of a novella than an actual book—my version of a short story.
Actually, this has been a surprise to me, too. The reason why it’s a surprise was that I never intended to publish this story as a stand-alone book. I began this story a long time ago—before Twilight was even released. Back then I was just editing Eclipse, and in the thick of my vampire world. I was thinking a lot about the newborns, imagining their side of the story, and one thing led to another. I started writing from Bree’s perspective about those final days, and what it was like to be a newborn.
This story was something that I worked on off and on for a while, just for fun, in between the times I was writing or editing other Twilight novels. Later, when the concept for The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide came up, I thought that might be a good place for Bree. Her story is a nice complement to Eclipse; it explains a lot of the things that Bella never knew. So I dusted it off and finished it up for placement in the Guide […]
Then I got the news: my “short story” was nearly 200 pages long when typeset. It was too long to fit into the Guide—without ending up with a tome as heavy as the Oxford English Dictionary. My publisher approached me with the idea of releasing the Bree story on its own. […]
There was one thing I asked for: since this story had always been an extra for me, and was meant to be released with the Guide, I wanted to be able to offer it to my fans for free. You all have bought a ton of my books, and I wanted to give you this story as a gift. My publisher was awesome and embraced this idea. We still wanted to also produce a physical book […] if you like, but starting at noon on June 7th until July 5th, it will also be available online at www.breetanner.com.
One other aspect of this release is the plan to give a more important gift to people who really need it. One dollar of each book purchased in the US from the first printing will be donated to the American Red Cross for their relief efforts in Haiti and Chile and other parts of the world where people are in great need. We’re going to have an option online as well, so you can choose to make a donation if you want when you read the story online. I hope you will. I think that we can really help a lot of people with this.
I really hope you all enjoy this story. I had a blast writing it. I’m glad that after all this time cooling her heels in my files, Bree finally gets her chance to shine.
Thanks for all the support,
Steph
What do all of you think of this idea of an Eclipse spin-off book? Will you be buying it?
17 Responses
I'm really excited about this because I was always more interested in learning more about newborns. And if anyone says they rather have Midnight Sun after what she's said about it I'M GOING TO SCREAM GET OVER IT !!!
Woot! I remember how… sorry I felt for Bree in the book; and this is going to be awesome. Thanks for telling us, Kaleb! 😀 (Will you be reading this and commenting on chapters, here?)
I won't buy it, but I'll read the free online release. It should be interesting to see aspects of S. Meyer's worldbuilding that we didn't get to explore too much in reading the saga. Obviously Bella had an unusual amount of preparation and awareness about what was happening when she was a newborn. Being able to see what being an uninformed newborn experience would be like will offer much better insight into the nature of the Twilight vamps, of which there is still a lot of vagueness. After observing the Cullens, who are pretty much the exception to every rule, for four books, it will be fascinating to see a more typical, albeit short-lived vampire point of view.
It's also nice to see that, for all the flack she gets about her writing abilities, Stephenie Meyer treats worldbuiliding with the same amount of care and attention to detail as the rest of us lowly writers.
That is SO awesome!!!!! XD At first I kind of thought it was a joke too… :p But that's very sweet of Stephonie Meyer to let us read it for free but also make it into a book book and give a dollar from each book to charity. 🙂 I love the idea of this book, and I can't wait to read it! Thanks for telling everybody about it Kaleb! You're awesome!
I am certainly going to be reading it online and donating to the Red Cross from the site on June 5th. I enjoy reading from different perspectives so I am sure this will be a great addition to the story, especially while waiting for the Eclipse movie!!
She was once quoted as “Taking a break from vampires.” This book gives me hope that maybe we'll be surprised with the completion of “Midnight Sun” some day. MS will be my favorite book of the series when it's completed!
I don't know if I will buy it…but it would look nice on the shelf with my Twilight book/movie collection. I'll probably wait until I make an Amazon order and when I am short to get free shipping, I buy it then. :o)
I didn't read all the comments before submitting mine. Sorry I mentioned MS, please don't scream. :o)
If I have money at the time I will indeed buy it. But I'll also probably read it online first. I'm honestly not that excited but it does seem interesting. (Plus if I'm donating then that's worth it for me)
it will be very interesting to read and i will definitely buy the book to go with all the rest of her books on my shelf. cant break up the meyer library i have going 🙂
This seems like a really interesting read. I'll definately be buying it! It's always good to have a deeper insight into a story that you love. Stephenie's doing something that I wish more of my favourite authors would do, she's creating the whole world, not just one aspect of it.
But what about Midnight Sun? 😐
is this another teen romantic saga?
I'll surely buy this book! It seems exciting , I'll help people and have the pleasure of reading another Stephenie's book.
OMG!! like scream and crazy ecstatic going on in my brain i am so excited. Is it out in book stores yet???
I really didn't catch the Twilight bug until last December and am looking forward to being able to be able to experience reading this at the same time as everyone else.
At this point I haven't read Breaking Dawn and was considering holding out with it untill after I've seen the Eclipse movie. Do you think there would be any spoilers in Bree's story?
Wow! I am waiting for this book for long. It seems we can pre-book this now itself and it would be delivered to my home within 2-3 day of release in India as per http://www.uread.com/book/short-second-life-bre…
Cheers
Wow! I am waiting for this book for long. It seems we can pre-book this now itself and it would be delivered to my home within 2-3 day of release in India as per http://www.uread.com/book/short-second-life-bre…
Cheers
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