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The Return: Nightfall (The Vampire Diaries) |  | Author: L J Smith
Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
Category: Book
List Price: £6.99 (7.25EUR)
Buy New: £3.49 (3.62EUR)
as of 31/7/2010 13:25 IST details
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Seller: Amazon.co.uk
Rating:  60 reviews
Sales Rank: 202
Media: Paperback
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 1.7
ISBN: 1444900633
EAN: 9781444900637
ASIN: 1444900633
Publication Date: March 4, 2010
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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Product Description
A thrilling new story arc following on from the brilliant original Vampire Diaries books - now showing on ITV2 - by L. J. Smith, the best selling author of Night World.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 60
 Transfixed and spellbound July 26, 2010
Mrs. D. Simpson (Derbyshire England)
What can i say after reading the other two books this one is awsome, again could not put it down.
 What was all this about???? July 22, 2010
Maria (Wales, UK)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'm not quite sure where to start.... I need to say that I absolutely loved the first 4 books. I read them back to back and couldn't get enough of them. So when I started with Nightfall I was full of expectations and excitement, only to be disappointed from the first page. Seriously what was all this book about??
Firstly I got annoyed with this baby like Elena, I mean she can't read, she can't write, she can't talk, she can't even walk for crying out loud. SHE FLOATS INSTEAD. She needs to kiss people to memorise them. I mean WHAT??? I started to miss the Elena Gilbert who knows what she wants and gets what she wants, always immaculate and knows it. As annoying as she might have been but nothing compares to this angel Elena.... Not impressed.
Second I got annoyed with St Stefan, always thought of him a bit spineless but if I thought he can't get any worse well I was wrong. Seriously what was all this 'lovely little love' all about?? OH PLEASE. And why is it that he's meant to be a vampire and strong etc and it seems to be Elena getting HIM out of trouble all the time? She's always rescuing him as he seems unable to look after himself!
Third I got annoyed with Bonnie and Meredith, always been my favourite characters among Elena and Damon but not now. I mean they seemed to be running around like headless chickens with no purpose whatsoever.
Last I got annoyed with all this flying... They never used to be flying anywhere and now all they do is fly everywhere! Don't get it. All in all I didn't get most of the book but nevermind. It was confusing, half the things that were going on I couldn't picture in my mind. Some things seemed so pointless and not connected to anything, just seemed like a total mess the whole book.
The Only reason this book managed to get 2 stars from me was because of Damon. Only reason that kept me reading. I would recommend anyone who haven't read these books yet to read the first 4 and leave it like that, I wish I had.
 mindbogglingly bad! July 18, 2010
miss_katamari
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Possibly the worst book I have ever read!
I started reading the Vampire Diaries series after watching the TV show which I really enjoyed (despite my initial "grown-up" misgivings that it was going to be teenage rubbish). After loving the series I thought I would give the books a go and although they were no where near as good as the show, I did enjoy reading the first 2 books (or 4 volumes).
The same cannot be said for this book however. The books had already started getting a little odd, but this one just takes the biscuit! The story is absolutely ridiculous and does not make sense. I would be reading some pages and get completely lost from one paragraph to the next as it is so badly written. The characters now seem to be completely different to the previous books and as other reviewers rightly point out, what the heck has happened to Stefan? I agree wholeheartedly with the revulsion felt every time he simpers about his "lovely love" URGH!
The book starts out weird but readable, but very quickly it becomes an absolute mess with everyone wandering around going from one ridiculous hard to follow scenario to another. There is no rhyme or reason to anything that happens. I honestly do not understand why anyone allowed this to be published, it is that bad! I find this book to be an absolute insult to fans of the previous books, it is a blatant rush job attempt to milk the cash cow for all it's worth thanks to the success of the TV series. I will definitely not be reading the next book - which is a continuation of the "story" in this abysmal offering.
Please do not waste your money on this trash! As others have mentioned, if you want to read a good novel about vampires and the like read Twilight or some of Charlaine Harris's books. Or go old school and pick up some Anne Rice (The Vampire Lestat is amazing!). If you do decide to buy and attempt to read Nightfall, good luck to you!
 Slightly disapointed July 12, 2010
Ms. D. Thomson
The first four vampire diaries books keeped me wanting to read on and i never wanted to put these books down. This one i felt as if the whole story line was ruined it dragged on at times and i never wanted to read on i found it confusing and dull at times and i found myself loosing the main plot to it to. It did seem to pick up towards the end of the book and get better though.
Unnecessary inclusion into this series June 21, 2010
A. L. Rutter (Portsmouth, UK)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Elena Gilbert has returned from the Other Side, and has to relearn how to live amongst humans. She is helped by the love of her life -- Stefan Salvatore, a vampire -- and her three closest friends. However, evil forces are gathering around Fell's Church, drawn by the beacon of a returned soul, and Stefan is snatched away from Elena when she needs him most. She has to turn to his dark brother, Damon, for help -- never knowing for certain what motivates Damon or whether he has been possessed by the dark forces that want to steal Elena for themselves.
Unfortunately, The Return: Nightfall is a horrific mess of a story. It is a long rambling book -- almost 500 pages, which is a great deal longer than any of L.J. Smith's previous novels -- and seems to leap from event to event without any obvious connection. Some of the writing is terrible, and disappointed me greatly because usually Smith's prose is so very good. I just didn't understand some of the descriptions Smith used, such as in the following passage:
"Tears pooled in Bonnie's brown eyes. "I didn't mean-"
But she didn't get to finish. Meredith and Elena drew in protectively around her in the solid phalanx of what they called `velociraptor sisterhood.' It meant that anybody messing with one of them was messing with them all."
I honestly didn't get this reference, and it was mentioned a couple of times through the book -- why would anybody refer to themselves as a velociraptor sisterhood? What does that even mean?
There is also a quote from the book which seemed to indicate the way in which L J Smith wrote this novel:
"The knowledge seemed to come moment by moment as she needed it."
It felt as though Smith was never in control of this story -- that she was throwing ideas at the pages and hoping they would stick to create a coherent whole. None of her characters are consistent with how they are written in the four previous novels. Sure, on the surface Bonnie is still impetuous and fiery, Meredith cool and collected; but at times they would do something so wildly out of character that it jarred me from the story horrendously.
What made this so disappointing is the fact that during brief periods, the prose still soared in the way I have come to expect from L.J. Smith. When she is on form, I genuinely believe that there is no other YA author who can touch her, but sadly there is very little of that in Nightfall, the below excerpt being a rare exception:
"She had seen him when she was a human girl, and she had defied him and desired him in equal measure, and he had seemed to love her best when she was defying him.
She had seen him when she was a vampire and had been drawn to him with all her being, and he had cared for her as if she were a child.
He was a womaniser, he could be callous, he drifted through his victims' lives like a chimera, like a catalyst, changing other people while he himself remained unchanging and unchanged..."
In all honesty, I was never sure why Smith revisited The Vampire Diaries after the first three books, which presented an excellent tale with a very natural and moving ending. I could sort of accept book 4, since there was clearly a decent story in place. Book 5 is a step too far, and ensures that I shall not be picking up any further novels in the world of Elena and Stefan. Some authors need to learn to quit while they're ahead. I recommend pretending that this book doesn't exist.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 60
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