Summary
Isabella Swan decides to move from sunny Phoenix, Arizona to rainy Forks, Washington to live with her father Charlie, in order to allow her mother Renee, to travel with her new husband, Phil Dwyer, a "strictly minor league" baseball player. Even though she never had many friends in Phoenix, Bella quickly discovers she is the new subject of curiosity and envy at her new school in Forks, where she is quickly befriended by several students. Much to her embarrassment, she discovers that several boys are competing for her attention.
Bella finds Forks a bit repetitive and lacking in joy. She never liked the ever-raining city as a child, and even referred to it in Twilight as her "own personal hell on earth". However, the one exception to her boring life in Forks is Edward Cullen, the gorgeous and beautiful, mysterious boy she sits next to in her biology class. Through their unbelievably strange friendship she hears 'ridiculous' rumours that Edward and his family are more than beautiful humans, but despite having many theories she cannot bring herself to believe that there is a supernatural explanation for Edward's behavior.
From the first day she saw him, Bella believed Edward disliked her as he acted with mysterious tension and even danger when she first sat next to him. However, his attitude towards her soon begins to change. He displays supernatural abilities in saving Bella from being hit by an out-of-control van about to crush her in the student parking lot of the high school. After seeing a dent in the van in the shape of Edward's hands, she realizes the vehicle hit him and that he seemed to be holding it away from her. Bella confronts him afterwards with the strangeness of the situation, but he refuses to talk to her about it. As time passes, Bella and Edward are repeatedly drawn to one another, even though Edward desperately tries to keep away to keep her out of the danger he will be likely to put her in.
Bella eventually learns from her friend Jacob Black of the Quileute (pronounced Quil-yoot) tribe and her own observations that Edward and his family are reformed vampires who substitute animal blood for human blood in their diet.
Despite the obstacles presented by the vampiric nature of the Cullen family, Edward and Bella fall deeply in love. Their foremost problem is Bella's alluring scent, which "sings" to Edward and makes it difficult for him to restrain himself from attacking. However, despite this and Bella's strange knack for constantly landing herself in dangerous situations, they manage to stay together safely for a time.
The seemingly blissful state of affairs is thrown into chaos when another vampire coven sweeps into Forks and James, a tracker, sets his sights on Bella. Thrilled as much by the idea of outwitting a clan of vampires as by Bella's scent, James begins an interstate game of cat and mouse. Under the assumption that James has kidnapped her mother, Bella is lured to her former dance studio, where James attacks her. Edward, along with the rest of the Cullen family, rescues Bella before James kills her. In the chaos James bites Bella, which complicates matters further; the venom injected into a victim of a vampire attack starts the process of turning the victim into a vampire. Edward takes up the task of sucking the venom out of Bella, thus saving her from the transformation while also restraining his own urge to drain her.
The book ends with the two going to Bella's prom. Beneath the surface, tension remains as Bella wishes for Edward to turn her into a vampire while Edward refuses to do so. The reason for Edward's adamant decision not to turn Bella into a vampire is not revealed until future books.
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Summary Credit: Wikipedia
