During winter 2006, the release of the Nightwish Book and the DVD End of an Era seemed threatened by the couple left aside from Nightwish. The issue between the band and the couple seemed to turn into a legal issue which was not a good thing for the fans...

With more than 65000 albums sold, the best of “Highest Hopes” is the album that sold the most in Finland.

On March 17th, Nightwish wished to get away from controversy and go forward. So the band announced its search for a singer with charisma and a great voice. After that, many rumors about potential singers more or less famous started to appear (Forever Slave, Epica, Tristania, Leave’s Eyes…). All these rumors were denied. The band and Ewo claimed they have received more than 2000 applications.

The tense relationships between Nightwish and Tarja and her husband faded in spring 2006. While Tarja turned the page and focused on her solo career, Nightwish worked on their DVD. In April, Brother Firetribe’s album – Emppu’s solo project - was released by Spinefarm. The band plays some Hard FM music.

In May, the Nightwish Book, written by Mape Ollila, that Marcelo Cabuli first threatened to censor was published in a Finnish version. Although the book was supposed to give the fans all the answers of their questions, the author stressed the authenticity and objectivity of the book since it has no bias. On June 2nd, the DVd End of an Era was released in Europe. It became gold record in Finland the very day it came out, and hit the charts in Swiss, United Kingdom, Germany, Holland, France and Austria.

On October 8th, Tuomas announced that the search for the singer would continue until December, that she would record her vocals on February and that her identity would eventually be revealed in May 2007. From October, the recordings of the album were taken place and a studio diary was put online and updated on the official website. It had been a year since the band parted from its charismatic singer. On October 28th 2006, it was time for Marco to get on with his side project since Tarot’s new album was coming out.