Haven't read parts 1, 2 and 3? Click HERE to start reading from the beginning.
After finishing my first Twilight fan fiction, Perspective, I embarked decided to deviate from the wold Stephenie Meyer created and write a story with Bella and Edward both being human.
I'd begun reading stories with BDSM elements and I was intrigued by the level of trust and communication such a lifestyle required. Also around that time there was a huge story in the news about a young woman who'd been held captive for twenty years before she was rescued. My first thought was that when she decided to enter into a relationship that it would take a great amount of trust and communication after what she'd been through.
The wheels in my head began turning and before long I had the idea for a new story I titled Finding Bella.
Around the same time I was writing Finding Bella, E.L. James, better known at the time as snowqueens icedragon, was writing her fan fiction, Master of the Universe. As both of the stories began to gain some traction in the fan fiction world, they inevitably got compared to one another.
Eventually, the comparisons began to create a problem. Some readers felt Finding Bella should go in a different direction and they were very vocal about it. As time wore on, I began to lose my motivation to finish the story and realized that if I wanted to see if finished, I was going to have to pull it.
As luck would have it, there was a small publishing house that was setting to launch their first stories at the end of 2010. They were looking for new authors and had stumbled onto Finding Bella. They wanted to know if I had anything I was interested in publishing. I still wasn't sure what I was going to do with Finding Bella. And it wasn't finished at that point regardless.
However, I had written another story that had nothing to do with Twilight or even fan fiction. It was a story I'd been playing around with in my head since I was fourteen and that I'd finally written down. I sent them the manuscript and within two weeks I had a contract on my desk for my very first published novel.
This has been one of my most anticipated reads for a while. I read the draft years ago that the author posted online after it was leaked and couldn't wait to read more.
Midnight Sun didn't disappoint. I loved every minute of reading Edward's POV. It gave a lot of insight into some things that were hinted at but not fully explored in Twilight.
I teared up twice while reading, but the biggest surprise for me was a conversation between Edward and Rose. The author did such a great job in expressing Edward's pain, both the current pain and what he perceived was to come.
The most surprising part of the story, though, was not Bella or Edward. It was Jasper. While reading Twilight, and even the rest of the series, I was rather indifferent toward Jasper. Even with what we learned about him in Eclipse, I wasn't overly moved one way or the other. In Midnight Sun, my entire perspective changed.
If you were team Edward, then this is a must read book.
Next on my TBR list is a book I've been wanting to read for the last ten years. I was bummed when Stephenie Meyer decided not to publish Midnight Sun all those years ago after someone leaked her draft to the public, but as an author I understood. The betrayal she must have felt had to be tremendous.
My joy over this book finally being published is not only because I can't wait to read Twilight from Edward's point of view, but also because Twilight is what ultimately led me to publishing my first novel. After reading the Twilight series, I, like other fans, wanted more, so I began writing Twilight fan fiction. And it was that Twilight fan fiction that got me noticed by a small publisher. Without that, who knows if I'd have ever become a published author.
Have you read Midnight Sun and if not, do you plan to read it?
