Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

As a big fan of Shiver, I was highly anticipating this next book in the triology. I can't help but always doubt how good a sequel is going to be - for some reason they never capture the awesomeness that you find in the first book of a series... but that is not the case here. Ms. Steifvater's Linger met my expectations, in fact, I think it is just as good, if not better than Shiver.

Winter is almost through and Sam is still just a boy. Although he spends must of his time worrying about whether he'll change or not, he finds joy in writing his songs but, most of all, he finds happiness with Grace.

Grace is just happy to have Sam in her life. Their risky experiment at the start of winter worked and she is no longer worried about Sam going wolfy. But her health is unexpectedly deteriorating and her notoriously absentee parents are none-too-happy with how fast her relationship with Sam is going and will stop at nothing to keep them apart. Grace is trying to keep her illness from Sam but she knows that whatever she's suffering from is very serious and if Sam is to find out she knows it will devastate him.

Along with Sam and Grace's perspectives we also get Isabel (met previously in Shiver) and we are introduced to Cole. I absolutely loved Isabel. I looked forward to reading her POV chapters/sections. She's so sarcastic and snarky and painfully honest with her feelings. Then there was Cole - who was such a deep character. He's one of Beck's "new wolves". He chose to become a wolf because he could not fathom living his life anymore. There were so many layers to him and his pain is so honest and raw. I really liked their additional perspectives. Now I know to some thinking of reading four POV's, might sound a little disconcerting, but do not fret. Ms. Steifvater really outdid herself in giving you a different angle to every scenario in the book. I really enjoyed reading the story this way.

Like Shiver, this book also has an emo-ish feel to it. There is not much action or adventure, but you are definitely on a roller coaster when it comes to your feelings. You are happy when reading of Sam and Grace's relationship, bitter when it comes to Isabel and Cole's lives, and mad, even bordering on hatred, when it came to Grace's parents and their constant interfering. Oh, and did I mention, Isabel's gun-crazy father, trying to shoot anything that remotely looks like a wolf.... yea, plus there's this impending sense of doom that has you on edge the whole time.

All in all, I was enraptured by LINGER, and am positively anxious with excitement for Forever -the final installment in the Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy - scheduled to release July 2011.

*If you are considering reading Linger, I do recommend that you read Shiver first as it is the first in the trilogy. Otherwise you would not grasp the whole story and, of course, you'd be missing out on an amazing book.