Review: Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: Linger
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Format:  Kindle
Genre:  Paranormal YA
Source:  Personal Copy
Published:  July 13th 2010 by Scholastic Press
My Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

From Goodreads.com

In Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other. Now, in Linger, 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 Isabelle, who already lost her brother to the wolves . . . and is nonetheless drawn to Cole.

**Warning! This is book #2 in a trilogy and there may be spoilers to book #1, Shiver.**

The best way to describe Maggie Stiefvatars writing is beautiful. Linger, the second book in her Mercy Falls trilogy is the perfect follow-up to Shiver. The writing is consistent and the story picks up a few months after we left off, Sam still adjusting to his new lifestyle and Grace relishing in it. Their friend, Olivia, is officially a missing person and Isabel and Grace have become friends – despite the death of Isabels brother.

Graces ever absent parents play a much larger role in Linger. Granted, that absent parents are one of my it pet peeves (the exception being boarding school) I wish Graces parents would go away! It’s hard for me, that parents who have very much lived their own lives pick the most frustrating time to be actual parents. Of course, I am just such a fan of Sam and Grace that anything standing in their way is going to frustrate me.

Cole is a new character, one I didn’t like at first but whom I grew to love. My one hope for Forever is that we get to see more of both Cole and Isabel. Possibly together! (Hey, a girl can hope, right? I think they would be perfect together.) But back to Cole. He is one of the kids Beck brought back from Canada and while at first I didn’t see his story line meshing with the rest, I get it by the end. Unfortunately, his story line left me with more questions than answers!

In Shiver the main storyline revolved around Sam and his state of being. Linger however focuses more on Grace and what may have happened to her when she was bitten by wolves as a young girl. Again, if you are looking for a sweet romance with a paranormal twist? Maggie Stiefvatar’s Mercy Falls series is for yu.