Fanswhose hopes were dashed when Stephenie Meyer sidelined Midnight Sun, her planned fifth book in the Twilight Saga, after itwas leaked online,have reason to get excited. Little, Brown Books for YoungReaders will publish Meyer's The Short SecondLife of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella on Saturday, June 5. The book goes on sale at 12:01 a.m. witha 1.5 million-copy first printing (an e-book version will be available at 6:00a.m.). One dollar for each copy sold from the first printing will be donated tothe American Red Cross International Response Fund.
The Short Second Life ofBree Tanner tellsthe story of a newborn vampire introduced in Eclipse, who will also appear in the film version of Eclipse, scheduled to be released onJune 30. The book was originallyenvisioned as part of Meyer's TheTwilight Saga: The Official Guide. "I'm as surprised as anyone about thisnovella," said Meyer in a statement. "When I began working on it in 2005, itwas simply an exercise to help me examine the other side of Eclipse, which I was editing at thetime. I thought it might end up as a short story that I could include on mywebsite. Then, when work started on TheTwilight Saga: The Official Guide, I thought the Guide would be a good fit for my Bree story. However, the storygrew longer than I anticipated, until it was too long to fit into the Guide."
Inaddition to the print edition, the book will be available to read online forfree from June 7 to July 5 at www.breetanner.com. "[S]ince this story hadalways been an extra for me, and was meant to be released with the Guide, Iwanted to be able to offer it to my fans for free," Meyer said in a post aboutthe book on her Web site. "You all have boughta ton of my books, and I wanted to give you this story as a gift."
Meyer'sTwilight Saga has been published in nearly 50 countries and has sold more than100 million copies, including nearly 26.5 million in 2009 alone, according to PW's recent Facts and Figures issue.
