After a 10-Year Wait, the 'Twilight' Book 'Midnight Sun' Is Almost Here

Team Edward can rejoice now — the long-awaited book Midnight Sun is almost here.

More than 10 years after the conclusion of the Twilight saga, which told the dramatic and twisting love story between high school human Bella Swan and her vampire soulmate Edward Cullen, fans will finally get to hear the story told from Edward's point of view in Stephenie Meyer's new novel, which is set to be released on Aug. 4.

Die-hard Twilight fans have been watching Stephenie's website like hawks, as the author teased the announcement by publishing a countdown clock on the site. The clock didn't reveal what would happen once it reached zero, but her followers assumed it probably had something to do with Midnight Sun.

“I am very excited to finally, finally announce the release of Midnight Sun on 4 August,” Stephenie said on Good Morning America after the countdown clock had ended. “It’s a crazy time right now and I wasn’t sure it was the right time to put this book out, but some of you have been waiting for just so so long it didn’t seem right to make you wait any more.”

Stephenie was initially working on the project in 2008, but put it on an indefinite hold after facing a series of obstacles.

“This unforgettable tale as told through Edward’s eyes takes on a new and decidedly dark twist. Meeting beautiful, mysterious Bella is both the most intriguing and unnerving event he has experienced in his long life as a vampire,” the publisher said, according to The Guardian. “As we learn more fascinating details about Edward’s past and the complexity of his inner thoughts, we understand why this is the defining struggle of his life. How can he let himself fall in love with Bella when he knows that he is endangering her life?”

When Stephenie initially announced the project in 2008 as a companion novel for the Twilight series, she hadn't expected it to take 12 years to publish it.

But while she was still in the early stages of drafting, someone leaked the beginnings of the manuscript. 

"I did not want my readers to experience Midnight Sun before it was completed, edited and published," Stephenie wrote on her website after the leak. "I think it is important for everybody to understand that what happened was a huge violation of my rights as an author, not to mention me as a human being. Unfortunately, with the internet, it is easy for people to obtain and share items that do not legally belong to them. No matter how this is done, it is still dishonest."

She went on to say that the leak put her in a bad headspace, making the potential fate of the novel uncharacteristic given the tale, and she concluded her response by saying, "I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on Midnight Sun, and so it is on hold indefinitely."

But Stephenie later revealed that the "hold" was winding down, telling Hypable after Comic-Con that she had been working on the novel slowly over the years.

“I’m working on it," she told Hypable in January. "I didn’t completely shelve it because of [Grey]. It was just that — I was telling this story — it feels like it’s cursed. Because every time I start it, something happens and it’s just like, ‘ugh.’ But… my mother is going to kill me if I don’t do it. It’s more true than you know. This is all she wants from me. Every birthday, every Christmas present I get her, [she goes,] ‘You know what I really want.’ This is my life.”

“The more I wrote, the more I became convinced that Edward deserved to have his story told,” she wrote on her website of the announcement. “At first I was planning to post it all here on my website, but I changed my mind for two reasons, the most important being that Edward’s version is much longer than Bella’s – Edward over-thinks everything.”

Clearly, this news means it's time to pull your old Team Edward merch from the back of your closet and reread the original series.