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Stephenie Meyer was a 29 year old Mormon housewife when she had a dream one night back in 2003. The dream was so vivid and embedded in her mind when she woke that she wrote down the idea of a young woman and a vampire talking. From that dream Bella and Edward evolved. Twilight was born.

To date over 45 million copies of the book have been sold in the U.S. and another 40 million worldwide. Ms. Meyers books have spent 235 weeks on the New York Times best seller list. Quite a miracle for a dream. The movie version of Twilight grossed over $350 million. The second installment New Moon is set to open November 20th. The third Eclipse will be released June 2010.

It was a woman who published Meyer’s first book. Megan Tingley received the manuscript in November 2003. She was going on a cross country flight at the time. She began reading the books while on board and kept reading, finishing the book by the time she got off the flight. She had never heard of Meyer before. She wasn’t a vampire fan at all, but the book intrigued her to the point where she knew she had to publish it. With an art director she had to design the cover. Something appealing to both boys and girls, the young adult readers for whom the book seemed to be geared. Something to suggest yearning, young love, temptation- an apple. Like Eve tempting Adam.

Little, Brown publishers printed 75,000 copies on the initial run in October of 2005. Sales kept getting higher and higher each week. Another Mormon housewife read Twilight and was fascinated enough to create a website titled TWILIGHT LEXICON. She is currently getting over 50,000 visitors a day. Little,Brown made sure to print more copies of the following installments.

I read Twilight because I wanted to make sure it was not too sexy for the 13 year old I wanted to give the books to. I found it very well written, not sexy at all, but leaving you with the want to know what happens between Bella and Edward in the future installments. There’s the danger of vampires, but there is also the attraction Bella has for Edward that compounds the story, evolving into a mixture of slight horror, some quite fantastic things vampires can do, and knowing that in the end Bella is still safe. Perfect for the young adults the books were written for. And the 13 year old I gave the first two books to? She loved them! The other two she requested for Christmas. I intend to fulfill that request with pleasure.