The idea of vampires has always captivated the hearts and minds of people since the origin of the vampire was first noted. Books and movies like Dracula and The Historian have proven to become huge successes strictly because of their historical grounding and vampire themes. Move aside, Count Dracula, there is a new breed of vampire in town, and they are younger, cooler, and more attractive than ever before.

In case you have been sleeping under a rock for the past few months (and arguably years), I am talking about the vampires in the Twilight book series written by Stephanie Meyer. In this four part book series, a girl named Bella Swan moves to a small town in the state of Washington. There she has to deal with the constant teen pressures that occur in everyday life. But suddenly her world is turned upside down.

As Bella is in the school parking lot, she is almost hit by a van, but then out of thin air, a boy by the name of Edward pushes her to safety and stops the van. The only problem is that his shoulder created a dent in the vehicle and no one saw Edward run to Bella, especially not so quickly. What is the story with Edward? Bella decides to find out as a way of saying thank you.

One event leads to another and Bella finds out that Edward and his whole family are vampires who have been around for centuries. To make matters even more complicated, Bella and Edward fall in love with each other. Their love is so strong that it turns into a dangerous situation as Edward must protect Bella from other more ruthless vampires. Throughout the series, Bella and Edward have their love tested with encounters through vampire gangs, and even with a budding friendship that Bella creates with a werewolf.

The first book in this installment is entitled Twilight, followed by New Moon, Eclipse, and now the newly released finale to the series, Breaking Dawn. This series had a small, but faithful, group of followers that were more then successful at spreading the word of the thrilling and captivating story written in the pages of these four books. Slowly, the popularity has grown to Harry Potter magnitude. In fact, now that the Harry Potter series is over, a lot of fans were thirsty for another addictive book series and became satisfied with this one.

The popularity of the Twilight franchise has grown so much that a movie has been created of the first book and is scheduled to come out in mid-December. What is amazing about this whole phenomenon is that there has been very little promotion. There has hardly been any advertisement for the movie, very little promotion for the books, yet millions of fans reserved the fourth installment and made it (along with the other three installments), number one on the New York Times Best-Seller list.

Curious to find out what all of the excitement was about, I decided to cave in and read the first book. I immediately found out why everyone was hooked; I was, too. The story, while far-fetched, never gets complicated. It stays simple, yet makes no effort to deny the imagination some room to stretch. I found it necessary to purchase and read the other three books in the series, and it was well worth the investment. The characters are so rich and vibrant in descriptions, though realistic in a desirable way.

The only downside to these books (other then the huge number of pages), is the fact that they have ended their story. This series has a cult following and will undoubtedly be considered a cult classic in years to come. The series has won numerous awards and fans are clamoring to the Internet to find out when the tickets will go on sale for the movie. Now that Harry Potter fans have to wait until July to see the sixth movie in the franchise, they will most likely flock to see the first movie in the Twilight series. It is a great escape that becomes addicting and is enjoyable by people of all ages. So if you are looking for a vampire tale that will keep you on the edge of your seats and has a movie to follow, look no further than the Twilight series written by Stephanie Meyer. It is truly a rare phenomenon of our time.