LINGER

The soulful romance begun in Shiver (2009) continues in this equally elegant story as Grace discovers an inexplicably dead werewolf and develops a fever that leaves her yearning to turn into a wolf, and Sam questions the effectiveness of the cure and struggles to take over Beck’s authoritative role within the pack. Stiefvater adds two new voices to their alternating points of view: Isabel, Grace’s popular friend, who lost her werewolf brother in the first novel, and Cole, Beck’s latest werewolf recruit. She also adds back story on both Sam’s violent childhood and time with the pack and Cole’s decision, after becoming a famous musician at 16, strung out on drugs and hurting the only people who cared for him, to voluntarily become a werewolf. While Grace’s parents finally intervene in her life, forcing her and Sam apart, Isabel and Cole explore their attraction to each another. This sequel’s poetic prose skillfully captures the four teens’ longings for love, forgetting, remembering, righting wrongs and life itself. The riveting ending will leave readers panting for the next sequel. (Paranormal romance. YA)