Live Your Life and also Mine

The Awakening & The Struggle

The first book introduces the reader to Elena Gilbert, a popular and beautiful high school student in Fell's Church, Virginia (a fictional town possibly named after the actual city of Falls Church, Virginia), and her friends Bonnie, Meredith, and Matt, along with Caroline, Elena's old friend turned competitor. The book is mostly told from Elena's point of view. As their senior year begins, Elena begins dating a new boy, Stefan, and she eventually discovers his secret--he is a centuries-old vampire. As Elena and Stefan fall in love, strange attacks begin to happen in the town while a dark and seductive stranger appears to Elena. He is eventually revealed to be Stefan's older brother, Damon. It is revealed that in Renaissance Italy, the brothers both fell in love with a young vampire named Katherine. Fueled with rage, the brothers killed each other but woke up as vampires. The Awakening ends with Elena seeking out Damon, whom she believes to be the prime suspect for Stefan's disappearance after the townspeople begin to suspect Stefan as the one behind the recent murder of the school's social studies teacher and other strange occurrences.

The second book picks up where The Awakening left off, and delves further into Damon's attempts to win Elena's affections and Stefan's struggle to survive. To find Stefan, Elena seeks out Damon and confronts him in the graveyard, knowing that it will be dangerous. Damon claims he killed Stefan the previous night. But after Bonnie has a vision, Elena and her friends find Stefan in a well, near death. Elena saves Stefan by giving him some of her blood after they all pulled him out to safety. Elena also exchanges blood with Damon, making a secret deal with him she kept hidden from Stefan, and by doing so, ties herself to both brothers as Katherine did centuries ago. While waiting for Stefan one night, Elena feels as if a presence inside a storm is coming for her, and she frantically tries to escape by crossing the bridge over a river. The car she is in veers off the road and into the river, and she drowns. The Struggle ends with the revelation that, because she took enough of the brothers’ blood, Elena becomes a vampire upon her death.

The Fury & Dark Reunion

The third book deals with Elena's adjustment to her vampirism, as well as her confusion over loving both brothers. Stefan finds Elena dead, and believes that Damon was the force chasing Elena. They fight, and in the middle of it, Elena awakens, and attacks Stefan as, Elena viewed Stefan as a threat to her creator—-Damon having given Elena more blood in their exchange--and the brothers stop the fight. Stefan, heartbroken, assumes that her attack meant she loved Damon more, and Damon attempts to clear everything up. After Elena has fed, Damon hides her in Alaric Saltzman's attic. After she has rested she decides to wander in the woods. She ends up at the church where a memorial is taking place. She decides to wait in the attic of the church for Damon to come and find her. Something begins to dawn on her as she waits in the attic. She can see her friends and family in the church and people are talking about....Her! It's her memorial and the whole town has gathered to remember her. Stefan and Damon are alerted by Elena's distress and rush to her side. Stefan arrives first and when Elena sees him she realizes that she loves Stefan more than Damon. Damon arrives as the service ends and Stefan and Damon are soon bickering. They are interrupted by a pack of dogs attacking townspeople outside the church. Elena, Stefan and Damon come to the conclusion that the force that made Elena's car drive off the bridge was controlling the dogs. Their suspicions were proven correct, as it turned out that the person responsible for Elena's death and all of the strange events in Fell's Church was-Katherine. Katherine was furious at the Salvatores for falling in love with Elena. She decided that since they didn't love her anymore she would capture, torture and kill them. Elena manages to break free of her bindings and pushes Katherine into a shaft of sunlight upon which Katherine dies. Elena also gets struck by the sun. Stefan pushes her out of the way but it was too late. Elena had been in the sun for too long. She makes a few "last remarks" (which the brothers agree to) before Elena closes her eyes and passes away.

Told from Bonnie's point of view, the fourth book begins six months after Elena's death, while Bonnie is dreaming (about Elena). At a surprise birthday party for Meredith, Bonnie and Caroline (along with Vickie and Sue Carson) contact Elena using a Ouija board. Elena warns them there is another evil in town, and that they are all in danger. She tells them they need to summon someone but gets interrupted, presumably by the evil spirit, before telling the girls to run. Before all of the girls can get out of the house, Sue Carson is thrown from the second floor balcony and dies. Vickie relapses in to insanity after the ordeal. Following Elena's instructions, Bonnie, Matt and Meredith summon Stefan and Damon back from Italy. They begin investigating the awful events plaguing the town. They discover that Tyler Smallwood, a fellow classmate, is a werewolf and has been in league with Klaus, Katherine'

s powerful and twisted creator. Klaus then kills Vickie, despite the team's efforts to protect her. In a final showdown, Stefan and Damon fight Klaus, and Matt, Bonnie, and Meredith pitch in to fight Tyler. Bonnie summons Elena's spirit to aid them after Stefan and Damon are badly injured. Elena sets an army of ghosts from the Civil War on Klaus, who is destroyed. Elena is now ready to move on for good, leaving this world and Stefan forever, since Stefan has agreed to remain as he is and keep fighting for goodness. But Elena is returned to him, weak, pale, human, and alive. She and Stefan offer Damon a spot with them among friends, but Damon declines, saying that the shadows are where he belongs. Damon then disappears for a long time.

The Return: Nightfall

Elena Gilbert is alive—again.

When Elena sacrificed herself to save the two vampire brothers who love her—the handsome, brooding Stefan and the sleek and dangerous

Damon—she was consigned to a fate beyond death. Until a powerful supernatural force pulled her back.

Now Elena is not just human. She has powers and gifts that were bestowed on her in the afterlife. What's more, her blood pulses with an overwhelming and unique force that makes her irresistible to any vampire.

Stefan wants to find a way to keep Elena safe so that they can make a life together. Damon, however, is driven by an insatiable desire for power, and wants Elena to rule as his princess. When Stefan is lured away from Fell's Church, Damon seizes his chance to convince her that he is the brother she is meant to be with.

But a darkness is infiltrating the town, and Damon, always the hunter, is now the hunted; he becomes the prey of a malevolent creature that can possess him at will, and who desires not just Elena's blood but her death.

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