Genre: Young Adult

#2 Wolves of Mercy Falls

362 pages

Kindle

Amazon

book received from publisher for review

In Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other. Now, inLinger, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past…and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack. And Isabel, who already lost her brother to the wolves…and is nonetheless drawn to Cole. At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love–the light and the dark, the warm and the cold–in a way you will never forget.

Linger pulls you in within the first line:

This is a story of a boy who used to be a wolf and a girl who was becoming one.

Linger picks up right after Shiver with Sam and Grace going about their daily lives. Sam, remains unsure if the ‘cure’ really works still shivers when the temperature drops to freezing. New characters, or new to me characters, since I have a bad memory – are introduced. Former musician Cole and tough girl Isabel are added to the list.  Much as I liked the first book, Linger is told from multiple point of views, at times only brief paragraphs of Sam’s feelings about Grace, or whole chapters devoted to Cole’s flashbacks with addictions. I haven’t read many books where authors can pull this off without getting nausea and throwing off your pace. This is one book that really pulls this off.

A majority of the book focuses on Cole and why he wanted to become a wolf. I’m always surprised when the young author adds adult themes like addiction, promiscuity and suicide. All topics that seem to work for Cole’s character as a transformative platform illustrating what he used to be to what he has now become. Cole is definitely one of the more interesting characters in this ensemble cast. Meanwhile, the precocious Isabel, who lost her twin brother to ‘the cure’, – finds herself oddly enamored of the mysteries Cole. But there’s trouble ahead,  Grace is starting to show signs of wolf; her scent starts to change, her sense of smell grows stronger, and then she gets the ‘fever’.

Linger is eloquently written about a wolf who became a boy and fell in love with a girl. For most of the book the pacing is a bit slow, which I didn’t mind but I think you definitely have to be in the mood for this style of writing. Maggie Stiefvater has one of the more interesting paranormal shapeshifter series out there. If you were hoping to learn more on how the Wolves of Mercy Falls came to be, sorry no such luck in this one perhaps in her next installmet.

If you loved Shiver you can’t miss this one. I mean it!

Other Reviews

My Friend Danny 4/5

And the winner of the Linger Giveaway is Chelsea, lucky SOB. I will be in contact with your shortly. Thank you all for entering and I will have more giveaways in the future *coughAugustcoug*

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