The fourth and final book in author Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" series, eagerly anticipated by fans hit the bookshelves at midnight on Friday, kicking off the celebration parties across the country.

Local vampires, mostly teenage girls, haunted area bookstores Friday night for a prerelease party and midnight unveiling of the final installment of Stephenie Meyer's "Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)." Booksellers confidently predict the book is set to become this year's bestseller.

The largest bookstores chain in the U.S., Barnes & Noble held vampire-theme parties in more than 600 of its stores on Friday night, and invited readers to arrive in costume, socialize and play Twilight trivia. Borders Group was expecting more than 100,000 fans at 900 Twilight-theme parties at its Waldenbooks and Borders stores, New York Times reported.

All copies of "Breaking Dawn" were kept well under wraps until the clock struck midnight. Most fans could barely contain their enthusiasm as midnight approached. And while waiting for the bookstore doors to open, the crowds of fans flaunted self-decorated T-shirts inspired from the books.  

Ever since the Harry Potter series wrapped up in July last year, bookstores have sought other titles to tout with late-night celebrations. These midnight parties have become an integral to how bookstores market not just books, but also themselves.
Exploring the love-triangle between Isabella Swan (Bella), a teenage girl who falls for a class mate she later discovers is a vampire, Edward, and her best friend, Jacob Black, who is a werewolf, the Twilight saga sold more than 5.5 million books in 33 countries appealing to a wide range of readers.

''All over this country, people are reading it, all over the world,'' Meyer, who never considered a series when she started writing the first book "Twilight," published in 2005, said in a video on Amazon.com.

"It's an immediate sales bump for the book, but not huge," White said. "But it creates a good feeling among customers and an attachment to the bookstore. If we throw a good party, they will remember us."

The novel has remained at or near the top of Amazon.com's best-seller list for months, according to the Associated Press. The e-book version is hot on its heels, with the download available at 12:01 on Sunday.

While "Twilight's" first run was 100,000 copies, "Breaking Dawn's" initial printing is 3.2 million. The other books in the series including "New Moon" and "Eclipse," are consistently being reprinted, usually on runs of 50,000 at a time, said Tina McIntyre, director of marketing at Little, Brown Books.

Moreover, the Twilight buzz increased heavily over the past months since Summit Entertainment announced their plans to make a movie based on the widely popular books. A possible first installment of a franchise, the movie, directed by Catherine Hardwicke and produced by Karen Rosenfelt, Greg Mooradian and Wyck Godfrey, began shooting in February 2008, with a release date set for the same year.