by Rebecca Hawkins

Created on: June 21, 2010

When the third film in the twilight saga “Eclipse” was announced to be released, Stephenie Meyer, the author of the book series on which the films are based, decided to write about some events that are mentioned in the book “Eclipse”, but never expanded upon.

In Eclipse there is an army of newborn vampires ransacking the city of Seattle, but as readers of the novels we never get much detail about these events as the main focus of the story is a girl called

Bella living miles away with her vampire boyfriend Edward.

So the purpose of writing “The short second life of Bree Tanner” was to provide the actors playing the newborns in “Eclipse” with a fuller idea of their back stories and to give them a better idea of how to portray their characters.

As well as a handy acting tool, these scribbles (which amount to 192 pages) were turned into a novella.

Stephenie Meyer stands by her announcement that she never intended to write a full book and did not do it for the money that releasing a new part of the series would bring (Retail around £7.99 at the moment, but can be brought for £5 already in some places). Of course, the book has been released, though only in hardback so far and it has a nice aesthetically pleasing cover that flows nicely with the original series; glossy blacks and reds with an interesting picture of an hour glass on the front. Stephenie Meyer has put the full book online so fans can read it for free if they do not wish to buy a copy and is giving some of the book sale money to charity...

The story follows newborn vampire “Bree Tanner” as she is settling into newborn life and trying to survive. In “Eclipse” we meet Bree only for seconds near the books conclusion and if you have read “Eclipse” then it is inevitable when reading this new novella that you know exactly how it ends anyway. So in the mean time, why not just enjoy a nice bit of escapism by reading a new perspective about newborns in the twilight universe? Why not? Because it’s not really worth it is why not....

The writing is very familiar with Stephenie Meyers simple style and her attention to details and emotions shining through again, but I did find myself very disappointed by the whole thing. Expecting to find out all about the events that happened in Seattle and with promises of actual dark happenings and scary “real” vampires from Meyer, it fell short.

We are introduced

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