Vampire Diaries - The Return: Nightfall

Now much more than human, Elena returns with powers and gifts that were bestowed on her in the afterlife. What's more, her blood makes her irresistible to any vampire. Stefan struggles to keep Elena safe, but Damon's insatiable desire for power includes making Elena his princess of darkness. When Stefan is lured awat from Fell's Church, Elena is left to choose for herself.

REVIEW:
This is the 5th book of the Vampire Diaries or the first one from the new trilogy called The Return. In this book, the story begins only a week after the events of the previous one as Elena is back to life, so I now understand why the trilogy is called this way. Anyway.

The book is full of annoying things that, well, annoyed me.
Firstly, there's Elena. She came back from the dead and she was fine when we first show her in the previous book, but in this one, she has this childish form. She can't speak or write and she can't communicate with anyone, except Stefan, who can read her mind.
Her friends are not actually trying to help her, they only talk about it, a lot, and they are worrying too much.
Then, Elena wakes up a morning and she's back to normal, just like that. Also, she has new powers, and she can't understand the way they work. This I understand. But she doesn't even try to practice or do something.
Lastly, L.J.Smith decide to enter the bad guys in the book in the form of a kitsune, a fox-spirit, a legend that comes all the way from East, which is fine by me. However, this is something that scares me, when authors tend to tangle several mythical forms together as a favour of a nice story, because if kitsunes do exist in this, does this mean that gargoyles are true, too??

For the first time, I found the writing really attractive. I was pulled in the book by the descriptions and the words and I was feeling like I was watching a movie. Of course, there were the hysterical moments where girls were crying and thinking stuff in a moment that made no sense. Yet, there was the fight scene during the end of the book, where all the characters are united, and even though it was seperated by smaller paragraphs and you were jumping from an action scene to another, the final effect was really good. The end leaves you with couple questions and you have to wait till the next book to be answered.

Bottom line, although its annoying girly things, and my willing to finish it as fast as possible, so I can move on to something more interesting, I didn't had much of a problem at the end. I can't tell you if I recommend it to you, because it depends on how you liked the previous books, but I can tell you that Smith's writing changed little from 1991 to 2007.