Stephenie Meyer is finally publishing her Twilight companion novel

Stephenie Meyer is releasing a Twilight companion novel that will tell the supernatural love story from Edward Cullen’s perspective.

If you’ve been thinking 2020 has been a wild year, prepare to cross another unexpected event off your Bingo card. Author Stephenie Meyer has announced plans to release a new Twilight novel, a companion called Midnight Sun, which will tell the same story as Twilight with a twist: It’ll be from Edward Cullen’s perspective instead of Bella Swan’s.

If this all sounds very familiar, that’s because Meyer had planned to publish this story back in 2008. She canceled those plans, however, after a manuscript of the book leaked early. Part of a rough draft was eventually published online, but the complete work remained under wraps — at least until now.

Yesterday, the author took to her website — which crashed after she teased the big announcement — and Good Morning America to let fans know that she’ll be releasing Midnight Sun after all. The book will officially hit shelves on August 4, giving fans a romantic release to look forward to this summer.

When asked why she chose now to make her plans known, Meyer suggested that fans don’t want to wait anymore — and let’s be honest, this bit of news has definitely lifted some spirts despite the current climate.

“It’s a crazy time right now and I wasn’t sure if 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 fair to make you wait anymore,” Meyer explained.

On her website, Meyer also discussed where her interest in writing a book from Edward’s perspective came from, elaborating a bit on why she felt the need to share this alternate point of view with readers. She wrote:

"“While I was procrastinating some real editing work (I’m always at my most creative when procrastinating), I started to wonder how the first chapter of Twilight would read if it were written from Edward’s perspective. There is so much more to his side of the story than there is to Bella’s in that first chapter. After all, Bella only knows that an incredibly gorgeous boy is looking at her funny. Meanwhile, Edward is suffering through one of the most momentous days of his very long life!”"

We don’t know that we’re totally sold on Edward being more invested than Bella, but perhaps Midnight Sun will convince us. If nothing else, it’ll enable us to fall back into a nostalgic world we haven’t visited in quite some time — and that sort of nostalgia might be just what we need during this crazy year.

What do you think of a Twilight novel told from Edward’s perspective? Do you plan on reading Midnight Sun when it comes out?