Vampire Diaries: Dark Reunion

I spoke too quickly about The Fury being my favorite of the Vampire Diaries series.
It's been awhile, forgive me, and I couldn't remember the fourth book.
But the first line of the first page brought it all back; all the memories of being twelve and having nightmares that mirrored Bonnie's because the dreams she had were so disturbing to me. The part with the teeth falling out, that was already a nightmare of mine and reading about someone else having that nightmare only caused me to be plagued by nights spent losing my own teeth. I was twelve and I didn't fall in love with Stefan. I was in love with Damon, dark and brooding and self-controlled Damon who is somehow always late but also always just in time.
It took me, cumulatively, three hours to read Dark Reunion, having been swept up by that first line. LJ Smith knows, unlike some authors, how to write action, how to time it so that it takes just long enough to put you on edge so that you want to read every word even though you're frightened to because you're not exactly certain what she'll allow the characters to do.
And she knows romance, not just the simpering fairy tale cottage and the designer clothes ( you know what I'm talking about), the real romance behind all things. The romance that links lovers and the romance that just is the sweetness and terror of life and love, that connects friends just as much as it connects lovers.
I'm a little leery about reading the new books.
I'm almost afraid they were only written for the sake of the show. If so, I want nothing to do with them. I only want them if their existence is due to the fact that Stefan and Elena and the gang truly weren't through with their escapades. I hope they aren't ridiculous.
Let's find out, shall we?
O and by the way, I saw on a certain website that some schmuck is trying to sell a 2001 edition of The Fury for $35. Whoever it is, they aren't a real fan.
I have the original print edition in like new condition. All four of the series. And sweetie, I ain't selling.

Vampire Diaries: The Fury

OMG.
As a rule, crying during teen romance novels is unacceptable behavior.
It almost happened though, almost but not quite.
Maybe it's because I got up so early. We'll blame it on that.

Thus far, The Fury is my favorite of the Vampire Diaries, which really should have all been one book...but what Stephenie Meyer can get away with today might not have flown so hot nearly twenty years ago (wow, let's not put it in those terms again!). The Fury is filled with awakenings and realizations and I was nervous for Elena and the gang, scared for them at times and then suddenly....my tiredness nearly allowed me to cry.
LJ Smith accomplishes what Meyer never did for me...she made me nervous. Yes, I've read the books time and again but every time that concern wells back up. I know these characters, they're old friends of mine and I want things to go well for them....but sometimes things just don't. And that is something else. LJ Smith is willing to allow her characters to go down paths that might be less than favorable. She is willing to shock and to let go.
It still makes me angry that these books were made into a television series (atrocious as it is).
They're making Outlander into a movie and The Vampire Diaries into a series. How backward is that?

At the end of the They Fury I ran back to my room, to my favorite shelf filled with old-school reads (which, I realized to my horror...I am missing a TON of my Christopher Pike books. Where did they go? Where is Chain Letter? And the Final Friends, hmmm? Ich weiss nicht.) and snatched Dark Reunion. Unfortunately, mommyhood duties called and it was time to feed the children. They are in bed now and I'm done talking to you, so now FINALLY I can get back to the gang.