Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008
Stephenie Meyer
Maybe Americans aren't ready for a Mormon presidential nominee yet. But they're more than ready to anoint a Mormon as the best-selling novelist of the year. The hero of Meyer's Twilight series — and hit movie — is a vampire named Edward who doesn't kill people and declines to sleep with, or bite, his girlfriend Bella. Meyer's religious upbringing taught her something few writers grasp, that fantasies can be about restraint as well as excess. Sometimes nice girls do finish first.
—Lev Grossman