Meyer, who was raised in Phoenix, Ariz., received a National Merit Scholarship and attended Brigham Young University, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree (1997) in English literature. She married in 1994 and worked as a homemaker, caring for her three sons. Inspired by a dream, Meyer completed the manuscript for her first book, Twilight (2005; filmed 2008), in three months. Soon thereafter Little, Brown and Co. offered her $750,000—the most the company had ever offered a first-time author—for the manuscript and two future books. The Twilight Saga, as her series of four books came to be known, tells the story—fraught with danger, suspense, and searing passion—of teenager Bella Swan and her vampire boyfriend, Edward Cullen. Meyer described her vampires as “very light”—sensitive, thoughtful, even beautiful figures rather than blood-guzzling predators. Some, like Edward and his family, do not drink human blood. They also do not turn into bats or sleep in coffins, and they travel abroad in daylight. This unconventional take on vampires, along with vivid characterizations and spot-on portrayals of obsessive love and other varieties of teen angst, won Meyer a fervid following among teenage girls.

Twilight won accolades from The New York Times, the American Library Association, and Publishers Weekly, which named Meyer one of the most promising new authors of 2005. The novel introduces Bella as she moves to Washington and first meets Edward, who instantly falls for her even though he is a vampire. Meyer's second novel, New Moon (2006), in which Bella befriends a young werewolf named Jacob Black, topped the list of best-selling children's chapter books in The New York Times within a month of its publication. In the third book, Eclipse (2007), Bella must choose between Edward and Jacob, hoping all the while that she does not inflame an age-old conflict between vampires and werewolves. After only one day on bookstore shelves, Eclipse had sold 150,000 copies. In 2007 the Twilight Saga finally edged J.K. Rowling (Rowling, J.K.)'s Harry Potter from his perennial perch atop The New York Times best-seller list for series books. When Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final novel in the series, was published in 2008, bookstores across the United States held vampire-themed parties before the title went on sale at midnight.

Notwithstanding the erotic tension of the novels, Meyer, a Mormon committed to keeping her writing consistent with her faith, eschewed sexual explicitness, a decision that made her popular with parents.