I’ve never been in love with a vampire before, so why do I feel like I have? It seems I am yet another victim of American author Stephenie Meyer. Her weapon of choice? Her debut novel, Twilight, a sensual, inspired, young adult romance, has been widely described as “a vampire story for people who don’t like vampire stories.” Twilight is the rare type of novel which, despite the many labels thrust upon it, can be enjoyed by basically anybody, regardless of their preferences.

Bella Swan is an awkward seventeen year old girl, who “makes the cowardly lion look like the terminator.” In the beginning of the novel, Bella lives with her flighty mother Renee, in sunny Phoenix, avoiding any contact with the small, gloomy town of Forks where her father resides and where, “everything that is supposed to be brown is all covered up with squashy green stuff”. It’s not until Renee decides to travel around with her footballer fiancée, that, filled with low expectations and a heavy heart, Bella chooses to move to Forks.

Not everything is as dull as she first anticipated. To her irritation, she becomes fascinated by the inhumanly beautiful Cullen family, especially the youngest, Edward. It doesn’t take long for questions to arise about Edward and his family and it soon becomes apparent that they are particularly good natured vampires. Both of them are aware that the very act of them being in love with one another puts them both in danger, both physically and emotionally, but what they forget is that Edward and his family aren’t always the most dangerous things around.

Upon discovering that author, Stephenie Meyer had not so much as picked up a pen for six years prior to writing this novel, I was amazed. Her style of writing is relaxed while channelling all the appropriate emotions, sucking her audience into this beautiful story of true love. It took a particularly vivid dream to pull her away from her household obligations: two young lovers standing in a meadow, the boy, a vampire, the girl, a human, discussing the dangers of their being in love.

At even the briefest of visits to her official website, it becomes blatantly obvious that Stephenie Meyer holds an enormous amount of passion for the story she has been chosen to tell, even going as far as to compose a playlist of songs which she hears In her head at reading her book. She has also created a list of actors she thinks could play her characters in the movie (though she doesn’t have any input in the film, which is still being considered for production by Warner Bros.)

After witnessing the intensity of Meyers dedication, it is no surprise that the atmosphere is so powerful; you don’t realise how involved you have become in the world of Twilight until you have finished reading. You begin to have what my friends (and fellow Twilight fans) and I, are beginning to refer to as ’withdrawals’. Withdrawals from the world of the self-conscious Bella and the charming Edward. Like it claims on the back cover blurb, “Twilight is an extraordinary love story which will stay with you long after you have turned the last page.”