Breaking Dawn

Breaking Dawn is the novel that turned me into a vampire! I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into the plot and stayed up late into the vampire hours of the morning devouring every twist and turn. Before long, I had turned deathly pale from lack of sleep. Consumed with an overwhelming thirst for new plot revelations, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, not until I’d turned the final page and appetite was satisfied. Only then could I become human again.

Book One

Breaking Dawn is the fourth and final novel in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. It is split into three separate books. The first books opens with Bella Swan marrying her vampire boyfriend Edward Cullen at a lavish wedding that counts humans, vampires and werewolves among its guests.

Edward takes Bella to a private island off the coast of Brazil for their honeymoon and there gives into Bella’s greatest desire by making love to her for the first time. Bella starts to feel strange the next day and soon discovers that she is pregnant.

Horrified, Edward takes Bella home, assuming that she will abort the child. But Bella wants to go through with the pregnancy and enlists the support of the vampire Rosalie, who has always wanted to have a child of her own.

Book Two

Breaking Dawn is the first novel to feature a viewpoint character other than the central character Bella Swan. Jacob Black tells the second part of the book from his perspective, which focuses on Bella’s four-week pregnancy and the threat from Jacob’s werewolf family.

The werewolves see the new child as a potential threat to the safety of the humans they are sworn to protect. They plan to destroy it, even if that means killing Bella as well. Jacob revolts against their decision and leaves the pack to form his own pack with Seth and Leah Clearwater.

Jacob’s distress is matched only by that of Edward, who is forced to stand by, tortured and helpless, and watch his beloved die. Edward refers to the unborn child as the ‘fetus’ and feels nothing but hatred for it until he picks up her thoughts and realizes it loves Bella as much as he does.

Bella almost dies while giving birth to her daughter, Renesmee, and Edward has to transform her into a vampire to save her. Jacob imprints on Renesmee, which means he finds his soul mate in her and is compelled to take care of her for the rest of her life.

Book Three

Bella becomes the viewpoint character again in the third part of Breaking Dawn. She awakes into her vampire existence to find herself utterly transformed. She revels in her vampire strength, speed and beauty, which all puts on her equal footing with her vampire boyfriend. And she adores her new daughter, who is half vampire and half human and has the power to transmit thoughts and images into the minds of others.

Bella's state of perfect happiness is short lived, however. A vampire called Irina sees Renesmee from a distance and mistakes her for an ‘immortal child’ (a human child transformed into a vampire), which is forbidden by the Volturi law that governs all vampires. Irina reports Renesmee to the Volturi who have been looking for an excuse to wipe out the Cullens as they see them as a threat to their dominance.

Warned of the Volturi's approach, by the psychic Alice, the Cullens enlist the help of their friends to stand as witnesses and tell the Volturi family that Renesmee is in fact not an immortal child – but a human-vampire child conceived in a natural way. But the Volturi are determined to find a reason to attack.

An all out battle between the Cullens and the Volturi is narrowly averted when Alice returns with a 150-year-old vampire conceived as Renesemee was. He proves Renesmee poses no threat to the secrecy maintained by the vampire community. This gives the Volturi an excuse to retreat - the real reason being that they fear the Cullens could destroy them – and peace is restored at last.

Why Breaking Dawn broke records

Breaking Dawn sold more than 1.3 million copies in the first 24 hours after its release. It is the strongest and most compelling of all the Twilight books and will have you racing through it, beginning to end.

I don’t know how these fantasy writers do it! Many series’, particularly in the movie world, start out strong and become weaker with each new addition. But both the author of Harry Potter JK Rowling and the author of the Twilight series Stephenie Meyer have done the seemingly impossible. They have each delivered a first-class series but managed to hold back until the very end, and then floor us with their finest work. (The deed earned JK Rowling's final Potter book the top spot on my list of the 100 best fantasy books.)

Having raced through Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse, I carefully avoided reading any reviews of Breaking Dawn until I'd completed the series. So I didn’t even know whether Bella would become a vampire, although that turned out to be one of the lesser surprises.

The suspense, especially throughout the first two parts of the book, is agonizing. There are some real shockers in there, particularly Bella's pregnancy, the gory violent birth and the revelation that Jacob has imprinted on Renesmee.

Stephenie Meyer delivers one blow after another in Breaking Dawn. After the birth of Renesmee, she lulls us into a false sense of security. We think everything is going to be OK. Bella is no longer the weak and vulnerable human. She and Edward can be together with their adorable child. And even Jacob is freed from the pain of rejection, now that he’s found his soul mate.

Everything's perfect. But it's clear that it wouldn’t last. As the preface suggests, danger is coming, this time in the form of the powerful Volturi.

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