Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

The basics

Title: Linger

Author:

Series: The Wolves of Mercy Falls #2

- Shiver (August 2009)
- Linger (July 2010)
- Forever (July 2011)

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Goodreads Summary:

The astonishing #1 New York Times bestseller.

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.

Read a full summary of Linger by Maggie Stiefvater below. If you can’t remember what happened in Linger and you need a refresher, then you’re in the right place.

In short

Now that Sam is cured, you’d think their problems are over, but they’re just starting. Grace and Isabel find a dead wolf in the woods with no visible injury except a bleeding nose. Cole, one of the new wolves, is a famous singer, and chose to become a wolf so he could have a start over. Cole and Isabel become tentative friends. When Grace’s parents find Sam in Grace’s room they ground her and stop them from seeing each other. But Grace is slowly and surely growing sicker everyday. It’s as if the wolf that she never was is now trying to tear it’s way out of her, and she’s plagued by headaches, fevers, and lethargy. Another new wolf, Victor, keeps shifting constantly and has trouble remaining in either one form. Cole, a scientist’s son, and a genius himself, starts trying to figure out these discrepancies. Grace, fed up with her parents’ unreasonableness and knowing she has only little time left, ;eaves her house and goes to stay with Sam. The next morning, her nose starts bleeding, and as the day progresses, so does her illness, until she starts throwing up blood. They take her to the hospital, and Cole comes up with a theory that the shifting is a defense mechanism that keeps whatever is in the wolf saliva from harming the human body. He propose that to save her life, Grace has to change. While Isabel distracts Grace’s parents, Cole deposits some of his saliva on a cut in Grace’s hand. They take her out the window, where she transforms into a dark grey wolf. Sam makes a promise to himself that he’ll find the real cure and come back for Grace.

What happened in Linger?

  • Now that his wolfy genes are killed, Sam is getting used to being a full time human and spending time with Grace. The police, meanwhile, are investigating into Olivia’s disappearance (Olivia is now a wolf and with the rest of the pack for the winter).
  • When Grace & Isabel go looking for the Olivia in the woods behind Isabel’s house, they come across a dead wolf, with no visible injury except for a trail of blood from the nostrils.
  • Sam goes to Beck’s house and finds Cole, one of the teenagers Beck had transformed last year, shifting into a wolf. Grace, meanwhile, has been having increasingly frequent headaches.
  • When Cole turns back, he finds himself near Isabel’s house and takes shelter. Isabel helps him out, giving him some of her dead brother Jack’s clothes.
  • Sam’s birthday comes around and Grace gifts him a session at a recording studio a town over. That night, Grace’s temperature shoots up, and she dreams of being a wolf. Sam also smells the wolf scent on her, but she doesn’t turn. When Grace cries out, her parents come in and find Sam in the room. They ban him from seeing Grace, and then take her to the hospital.
  • After Sam returns to Beck’s house that night, Isabel comes by with Cole in tow. Even though its too cold for him to be turning, he’s been fluctuating between wolf and human for a time now. When Sam questions him, Cole tells him he turned so that he could have a fresh start at life.
  • Cole starts trying to figure out what it is that makes them turn into wolves so that he can trigger the change. With a mad scientist for a father, and having grown up trying to figure things out, he’s not exactly out of his sphere. Isabel discovers that he is really a famous singer, Cole St. Clair.
  • Grace and Sam go to Duluth for the recording session without Grace’s parents’ knowledge, and when they find out, they ground Grace, and forbid her from seeing Sam. That night, Grace knows it’s only a matter of time until she turns into a wolf, and she packs a bag, and leaves for Sam’s house.
  • When she wakes up the nest morning, her nose is bleeding. She refuses to go to the doctor when Sams suggests it, but gives in when he insists. They diagnose it as a seasonal allergy.
  • Isabel’s father kills Victor and brings the body to Sam, threatening that if he sees another wolf near his property, he’ll kill them all.
  • That night, when Grace starts throwing up blood, Sam calls 911. Though the doctors are trying, they aren’t able to help her, because they dont know what’s wrong in the first place. Grace’s parents have Sam thrown out of the vicinity. Sam and Cole go to the cafeteria, where Isabel meets them.
  • Cole works upon his earlier theory and tries to come up with a reason as to why Grace is sick. Some thing in the wolf spit is dangerous for humans, and it triggers a defense mechanism in the human body that makes them shift. So its not the shifting that’s bad, but the thing that makes them change that is bad. Just like the wolf in the woods, who hadn’t shifted into a human for a long time, Grace is dying because she hasn’t shifted. He thinks shifting will make her better, though not cured. By that reasoning, even Sam’s ‘cure’ isn’t permanent.

How did it end?

Cole cuts Grace and deposits his saliva on the open wound, with the assumption that that would trigger the change, since she’s already near the brink. Cole and Sam smuggle her out the window, and she turns into a dark grey wolf with brown eyes.

Sam vows to find a cure, a real cure this time, and then cure Grace.

This is a full plot summary of what happened in Linger by Maggie Stiefvater. Check out our recap list for more recaps. If you can’t find what you need, you can request a recap from us!

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