Meyer's work is both celebrated and castigated for the fact that the supernatural element is entirely incidental. Take away bloodsucking and mind-reading, and the story of the handsome suitor, his fiery rival and the girl they both wish to protect and claim chugs along as easily as it has for hundreds of years. But in "The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner," this narrative apparatus is missing -- and without it, Meyer is a bit at sea.

Its few promising moments – Bree's pleasure when no humans interrupt a special moment with Diego, because "all the screaming would have ruined the mood", a chillingly thorough massacre of a whole ferry-load of people – are insufficient to redeem it from being woefully, leaden-footedly pedestrian throughout. In fact, the most interesting thing about it is the cover.