The Wolves of Mercy Falls

American covers of Shiver, Linger and Forever
Shiver Linger Forever
Author	Maggie Stiefvater
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Romance, fantasy, young adult fiction
Publisher	Scholastic
Published	2009–2011, 2014
Media type	Print

'The Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy, written by Maggie Stiefvater, contains the three books, Shiver (published 1 August 2009), Linger (published 13 July 2010) and Forever (published 12 July 2011). The books follow Grace Brisbane and Sam Roth. Shiver is written from both Grace and Sam's point of view. Linger is written from Grace, Sam, Isabel and Cole's view point. Forever is written from Grace, Sam, Isabel and Cole's point of view, with a small prologue from Shelby. The series is set in the fictional town Mercy Falls. Stiefvater has said that the real town of Ely in Minnesota would be the closest in destination to Mercy Falls. A fourth, stand-alone, follow up novel was later released in 2014 with Isabel and Cole being the protagonists.

Shiver has been licensed in over 32 foreign territories and remained on the bestseller list for over 32 weeks, selling 130,996 copies in 2009.

Shiver

The book begins with Grace remembering when she was attacked by wolves when she was eleven. However, one wolf saved her. From that point on, she watched "her wolf" in the woods, and he watches her. The wolves kill Jack and Jack's sister, Isabel, informs Grace that her father is ordering a hunt of the wolves. When Sam shows up on her deck, having been shot, she nurses him and allows him to stay in her room. They soon begin dating after sharing a kiss. Grace's friendship with Olivia is destroyed when Olivia dismisses her claims that the wolves are werewolves. However, Isabel confronts Grace about it. Grace and Sam tell Isabel all about the wolves, including that Jack is one. Sam's father-son relationship with Beck is ruined when Beck shows Sam that he has created three new wolves for the future of the pack. A pack member, Paul, is attacked to the point where he's almost killed. Sam suspects another wolf, Shelby, who is in love with Sam and wanted Paul out of the way. Sam later has a confrontation with Jack who locks him in one of their sheds. Jack kidnaps Grace but she tricks him into going to Beck's house for the "cure" where he is locked in the bathroom so he can change into a human again. Grace calls Isabel who finds Sam and nurses him back to health. When Grace is taking Sam to see Beck for a final time, she crashes the car and Sam turns into a wolf, escaping. Grace is distraught and Isabel tries to help her. Olivia apologises to Grace and admits that she and Jack are in love and that he only bit her when she wouldn't tell him the "cure". Isabel later suggests that the fever was what stopped Grace's transformation and that bacterial meningitis could be a possible cure. Beck agrees to help, turning into a wolf for the last time in his attempt to lure Sam out of the woods to sedate him. Grace, Isabel, Olivia, Jack and a wolf Sam head to the clinic where Isabel injects Jack with meningitis. Olivia, however, is scared of the needle and refuses it. Grace manages to communicate with Sam so that he turns human for a moment and she can inject him with the meningitis. However, he turns into a wolf again and escapes. Olivia turns into a wolf and disappears into the woods. Jack dies with Isabel by his side. As Grace and Isabel become closer, Grace is at her house when a human Sam arrives. The final line of the book reads "and I crushed her to me."

Linger

A newly recovered Sam finds Cole transforming in Beck's house and realizes that he's one of the teenagers Beck turned for the future of the pack. After becoming human again, Cole turns up at Isabel's in search of clothes. To hide her grief over Jack, she ends up kissing him but he disappears as a wolf again. Grace becomes very sick and, when she cries in pain, her parents find Sam in her room. They take Grace to hospital and stop Sam from seeing her. After returning from hospital, Grace makes plans to go and live with Sam at Beck's house. She leaves one night and Sam's ecstatic to see her. Isabel and Sam find Cole having a fit and discover that he was experimenting with needles, trying to find a way to become a wolf. Isabel and Cole later kiss again when he's warming up in the bath and again when visiting her mother's clinic. After spending a day together, during which Cole admitted his famous past to her, they almost slept together until Cole rejected her, not believing he was good enough for her. When Grace's health worsens, Sam and Cole take her to the hospital where her father punches Sam. Cole realizes that, because Grace was bitten but didn't change in a set amount of time, she's dying. He comes to the conclusion that she needs to turn. Isabel shows up and creates a distraction to get Grace's parents out of the room. Cole then gives Grace his DNA and she shifts, escaping out the window. Sam's final words are, "I will find a cure. And then, I will find Grace."

Forever

Shelby finds Olivia and kills her. Grace turns into a human and manages to call Sam, but by the time he arrives for her, she has already turned back. A desperate Cole tries to call Isabel but since she's still upset at his rejection, he leaves 20 voicemails on her machine, the last one simply, "I wish you'd answer." Grace is chased into a sinkhole by Shelby. Sam and Cole find her and manage to save her, locking her in the bathroom until she can change back. Isabel's shocked to discover that her father is arranging for the wolves to be removed from the protected species list. Cole reads Beck's diaries and discovers that the wolves have been moved once before, when Hannah, a wolf who could retain her human memories in wolf form, lead them. Sam is interrogated by Officer Koenig as he is the suspect behind Olivia's death and possible rape (as she was found naked) and Grace's disappearance. Sam and Grace tell him about the wolves and he tells them that he owns land just outside Mercy Falls where the wolves would be safe. Grace visits her parents to say goodbye, but they have replaced her with a cat. Cole captures Beck and calls Sam and Grace. He injects Beck with a dodgy substance he made, despite Sam's protests, and it turns Beck human again. They tell him that Sam was successfully cured but they have to move the wolves. Beck tells them about Hannah and turns back into a wolf, agreeing to help. Cole injects Sam and himself, turning them into wolves. The helicopter catches up to them and Beck is killed. The pack splits when Shelby and Sam fight. Shelby attacks Cole but they're shot. Isabel, who has driven up to the commotion, is hurt by Cole's apparent death and drives onto the scene. Her father texts her "Get out of there." She replies "When you do." The hunt stops and the wolves arrive safely. Finally, Isabel discovers that her parents are sending her to California for ruining the hunt. Cole calls her and she's thrilled that he's alive. He admits he needed to talk to her before he saw Sam and Grace. She tells him to keep her number, and they say goodbye.

Sinner

On September 10, 2013 Stiefvater announced that a fourth, stand-alone, follow up novel which was released in 2014 with Isabel and Cole being the protagonists. The story is showing when Cole comes to California to get Isabel back.

Character list

Main article: List of The Wolves of Mercy Falls characters

Narrators

• Grace Brisbane When she is saved from the wolves as a child by Sam, she begins to feel a deep connection with him. After meeting Sam in his human form, she falls in love with him and they begin dating. She returns and helps move the wolves and considers undergoing bacterial meningitis to become human again at the end of Forever so that she can go to college. She has dirty blonde hair and is the most beautiful girl Sam's ever seen; John would also call her "good looking" as a pet name.
• Samuel K. "Sam" Roth Beck adopted him when he was shot in the hunt, he met Grace and they begin dating, falling in love. Isabel injects him with bacterial meningitis as a possible cure but he disappears. He later returns as a human, revealing it worked. When Grace disappears, he vows to find her. When the wolves are under threat, he is injected so that he can turn into a wolf again to help move them. He often puts his feelings into lyrics. He becomes human again at the end of Forever. He has a dark mop of hair and yellow eyes; Cole describes him as a "yellow eyed John Lennon" and Grace thinks he looks everything but nothing like his wolf form at the same time.
• Isabel Culpeper is introduced as Jack's sister and became a narrator in Linger and Forever. She moved to Mercy Falls from California when she was fourteen. She discovered that Jack was a werewolf and then helped Grace with Sam, growing very close to her. Isabel suggested bacterial meningitis as a cure. This killed Jack but saved Sam. Although originally being portrayed as a bitch, Isabel begins to show her softer side, especially in her friendship with Grace. Isabel begins an on-off relationship with Cole. Isabel stops the hunt by refusing to leave the scene, resulting in her being sent back to California. When Cole called her to say goodbye, having fallen in love with her, she told him to keep her number. Grace says that Isabel has "more than her fair share of the Culpeper good looks" and Cole describes her as "drop dead gorgeous" the first time he sees her. She had long blonde hair in Shiver which she then cuts into a more edgy style, and blue eyes.
• Cole St. Clair was turned into a wolf by Beck along with Victor and an unknown girl. He was introduced in Linger and was a narrator for Linger and Forever.After attacking Shelby, he was almost killed. He was also the one to discover it was adrenaline, not temperature, to trigger a transformation and because of his father's doctor career he used his brains to come up with injections to influence transformation. He has brown hair and green eyes and is described by Isabel and Grace as being very good looking.
• Shelby is a troubled werewolf in the pack who was sexually abused in her human life. She was a narrator in Forever. Feeling sorry for her, Beck turned her. She was "mated" to Paul as a wolf and supposedly the dominant female. However, she was in love with Sam and wanted him to be beside her instead of Paul so often tried to kill Paul or Sam's girlfriend, Grace, of whom she was jealous. She's the one to turn Jack (along with Salem) and kill Olivia. After attacking Cole, both of them are shot at but only Shelby is killed. She has white blonde hair and Grace calls her beautiful with deep, soulful eyes; she also has a strong southern accent.

Film adaptation

"Shiver was optioned, but the producers and I had a difference of creative opinion and so I decided not to continue with it. It’s not to say it will never happen, but it’s definitely not on the books now. I would always rather no movie than a movie I don’t think my readers will appreciate, if it’s in my power (and with film, it isn’t often)." - Maggie's FAQ on her website.

Recognition

Shiver

• Debuted at #9 on the New York Times best seller list
• Indies Choice Book Award Finalist
• ALA Best Books for Young Adults
• ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers
• Amazon Top Ten Books for Teens
• Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2009
• Border's Original Voices Pick & Finalist
• Barnes & Noble 2009 Top Twenty Books for Teens
• CBC Children's Choice Awards Finalist
• 2010 SIBA Book Award, Finalist
• Junior Library Guild Selection
• Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Nominee
• Glamour's Best Book to Curl Up With
• VOYA's Perfect Ten, 2009
• Silver Inky Award Winner
• YRCA 2012 - Senior Division Winner

Linger

• Debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list
• USA Today Bestseller
• \* Wall Street Journal Bestseller
• ABA Bestseller
• Los Angeles Times Bestseller
• Junior Library Guild Selection Junior Library Guild-2010 Summer Jr./Sr. High

Forever

• Debuted at #4 on the New York Times Bestseller Series List
• Debuted at #1 on the UK Children’s Top 500 Books
• USA Today Bestseller

External links

• Official website