Eclipse (Twilight Saga, Book 3) by Stephenie Meyer

Eclipse (Twilight Saga, Book 3)
by Stephenie Meyer
Read by Ilyana Kadushin and Matt Walters

Continuing on with the saga of high school student Bella Swan and her boyfriend the Vampire and her almost boyfriend/best friend the Werewolf, Stephenie Meyer brings out the best in her story with book 3, "Eclipse." This book has some real nice qualities to it and seems to be a stronger story than the previous 2 books in the series.

The relationship between Edward Cullen, the vampire and Bella is strenghtened in this book. For the romance lover this is the book where true love is defined and embodied through the characters of Edward and Bella. A problem arises in this relationship in that Bella is also friends with and possibly in love with Jacob Black, a Quilute Indian and werewolf. With the werewolf being the natural enemy of the vampire you can see how this would create some stress. Jacob and his father have been friends with Bella and her father for years where Edward only came into the picture within the last year or so. Also, it doesn't help that Edward left Bella (for her safety), during that time Bella was severely depressed and the only thing that brought her out of the funk was Jacob. Jacob also is in love with Bella.

Now with this background we are treated to a great love triangle, and may the best man win. But Stephenie Meyer doesn't make it that easy. In the first book, "Twilight," Edward destroyed a tracker vampire named James. He did this because James was out to kill Bella. Well James' mate Victoria was not happy with this and in order to get revenge she wants to destroy Bella. In "Eclipse" Victoria's back and this time she has created an army of new-born vampires to take the attention of the Cullen family while she kills Bella. The Cullen's try to pull in every favor they can think of but no one wants to help with this little war being waged. No other vampires want to bring the attention of the Volturi upon themselves. The Volturi are the "governing class" of vampires that destroy any vampires that bring attention to the existance of vampires.

Eventually the Cullens team up with the pack of werewolves from the Quilute reservation in order to make the odds a little more even against the newborns and Victoria. Thus forcing Edward, Jacob and Bella to deal with this extremely complicated realtionship. This temporary truce between the werewolves and vampires creates the possibility of leading to a long term working relationship with two groups of "good guys."

In this book Jacob really turns out to be a bit more immature acting when it comes to loving Bella. He forces a kiss on her twice the first time Bella looks at the kiss as an attack the second...well let's just say it is eye-opening. Even if Jacob is a bit less mature, I'm still with Team Jacob and the werewolves. They are just more fun.

Also revealed in this book are more background on the Quilute tribe and their magicks as well as the backstory on Edward's "brother," Jasper, his "sister," Alice and other "sister," Rosalie.

Keep in mind all this is going on while Bella is finishing out her senior year in high school and getting ready to graduate and on top of that become a vampire herself after she graduates. Before she is to become a vampire Edward insists she marry him.

So with true love, true friendship, battles between vampires and werewolves and vampires this book has a lot of tension and action. Truly the best, so far, in this series. Too bad there is only one book left in the series.