Trailer: The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Teen-lit author Stephenie Meyer has announced that the next instalment of her phenomenally successful Twilight saga is “on hold indefinitely”, after an unnamed acquaintance leaked a rough draft via the internet. Meyer, who is often referred to as the new J. K. Rowling, had already posted the finished first chapter of Midnight Sun to her website. In response to the breach, the devout Mormon decided to post the entire draft on her website, so that fans choosing not to read the illegally reproduced version do not “feel they have to make a sacrifice to stay honest”.

In a preface, she writes: “I have a good idea of how the leak happened as there were very few copies of Midnight Sun that left my possession and each was unique. The manuscript that was illegally distributed on the Internet was given to trusted individuals for a good purpose. I have no comment beyond that as I believe that there was no malicious intent with the initial distribution.”

Midnight Sun would have been the fifth book in the Twilight series, which chronicles the dangerous romance between American schoolgirl Bella and handsome teenage vampire Edward, who must constantly restrain himself from sinking his fangs into her pretty white neck. The saga is underpinned by Bella’s fretting over whether to a vampire in order to consummate her relationship with Edward.

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• Stephenie Meyer - Official site

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BACKGROUND

• Stephenie Meyer's Twilight book scrapped after Internet leak

• Fancy man: Robert Pattinson

• Harry Potter goodie Robert Pattinson finds vampire fame

• The sexless vampire who’s so seductive

• Hollywood goes girly

BACKGROUND

• Twilight

Related Links

• Vampire-lit for children

The abstinence of Meyer’s characters reflects her own strict ethical beliefs, but the unfulfilled sexual desire with which they consequently bristle, has proven wildly popular with teenage girls – selling over eight million copies worldwide. Time magazine dubbed the phenomenon “the erotics of abstinence”.

Meyer penned the first story in 2003, after she was inspired by a dream. At the time, she was an Arizona housewife, too busy taking care of her family to treat her writing as anything but a hobby. When, at her sister’s suggestion she did try to sell her work, she was ignored or rejected by 15 publishers (Rowling was turned down by 12) before the last one offered her a $750,000 three-book deal.

Some critics have accused Meyer of peddling saccharine melodrama, an offence of which Times critic Amanda Craig feels she has been particularly guilty in recent UK release Breaking Dawn (the book preceding Midnight Sun): “Sadly, what made the first book so interesting and suspenseful - the choice between an imperfect mortal life and a perfect but sterile vampire one - is here traduced. Bella gets all her heart's desires, including a perfect baby, but not before the reader feels suffocated in sugar. Pass the insulin, please! “

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