LINGER by Maggie Stiefvater

I've been waiting for this book, ever since I read the last page of Maggie Stiefvater's first novel in this series, Shiver. Teen fiction is saturated with crap at the moment, and Stiefvater's elegant writing and style are a much-needed respite from the junk! Although the tale centers around the trials and tribulations of life as a werewolf, don't bother to make comparisons to that other popular series with buff guys shedding their skins for wolf pelts. (What was the name of that series again??? ;)
In Shiver, we were introduced to Grace Brisbane; a responsible, attractive and lonely teenage girl. Her parents are flightly ding-bats who seem to forget they have a daughter - often coming home at odd hours of the night and often leaving her to take care of herself. Her parents lackadaisical attitude toward caring for Grace is what set the chain of events in motion to tie her to the pack of Mercy Falls wolves that roamed freely in the forests behind her home. Grace was pulled from her tire swing and attacked by a pack of wolves when she was younger, only to be seemingly saved by wolf with mesmerizing yellow eyes. Grace finds an injured Sam in these same forests who also possesses the same yellow eyes as her wolf. As Sam and Grace's relationship develops, Grace is introduced to a world she didn't know existed in her own backyard; humans shifting in to wolves each time the seasons change to cooler weather. Most of Shiver is spent trying to find a way to keep Sam human, and to stop him from shifting in to a werewolf so he and Grace can be together. The two also wonder and theorize why Grace's bites from her previous wolf attack never caused her to shift. Sam's heartbreaking past and the mysteries surrounding the origin of the wolves is also explored and further explained in LINGER.

LINGER continues the love story of Grace and Sam, who are still uncertain if the "cure" they found for Sam will actually stick. Although Sam is seemingly comfortable in his human form, and finally embracing the possibility of a long future with Grace, it is Grace who is beginning to feel changes bubbling beneath the surface of her human skin. Will Sam's cure be forever? Who are the new wolves, and what will their presence mean to the future of the pack? These LINGERing questions are what shape the second novel and make it a sequel as equally enthralling as its predecessor.

Stiefvater's talent for story telling is just as mesmerizing in LINGER as it was in SHIVER.