Shiver

Shiver (2009) is the first installment in Maggie Stiefvater’s young adult paranormal romance series The Wolves of Mercy Falls. Influential in shaping modern fantasy romance narratives, the bestselling series is set in a universe where werewolves exist and their transformations are controlled by the weather. Shiver tracks the story of Grace Brisbane, who was bitten by werewolves when she was child but never changed, and Sam Roth, a werewolf destined to remain a wolf forever unless a cure is found. Grace and Sam fall deeper in love, knowing that Sam’s time with Grace is limited. Determined to find a cure for Sam, Grace finds herself making an impossible, dangerous decision that will change the course of many lives.

This guide refers to the 2009 Scholastic Kindle edition.

Content Warning: The novel and this guide contain discussions of violence and trauma, depictions of parental neglect and abuse, and emotional and physical turmoil that might be intense for younger readers.

Plot Summary

Grace Brisbane was 11 years old when she was dragged away from her yard by a wolf pack that lives in the forest adjoining her home in Mercy Falls, Minnesota. The pack nearly killed her before one wolf, with remarkable golden eyes, fought back and drove the others away. Grace survived. Since that fateful day, the golden-eyed wolf appears often at the edge of the woods, watching Grace. Grace develops a strange affection for the creature, recognizing his scent and thinking of him as “her” wolf. When Grace is 17, Jack Culpeper, a student at her high school, is also attacked by the wolves. Jack is believed to be dead, though his body is missing.

The attack on Jack sparks a frenzy in Mercy Falls, with police and locals joining hands to hunt the wolves. Grace rushes into the woods to warn her wolf and stop the hunters. When she returns to her house, she discovers a pale golden-eyed teenage boy in her backyard, shot and bleeding. Grace immediately recognizes him as her wolf and realizes that the wolves of Mercy Falls are actually werewolves. Sam’s injuries repair rapidly, as most werewolves heal with great speed. Grace hides Sam in her room, knowing her distracted parents will not notice his presence.

The pent-up attraction between Sam and Grace soon grows into a deep love, with the two revealing important details about their pasts. Sam had a horrifying childhood: Bitten as a seven-year-old, he was nearly murdered by his parents, who believed his transformations were proof he was demonic. Since then, Sam has been brought up by their pack leader, Beck, a lawyer. Although most werewolves switch between human and lupine states with the seasons for a few decades before settling into the wolf form, Sam is already at the end of his ability to switch back and forth. Soon, he will become a wolf forever, unable to communicate with Grace. Grace reveals that she has felt an affinity for the forest and the wolves ever since she was attacked, but despite being bitten by werewolves, she’s never changed. A month after the attack, her father accidentally left her locked in the car, and she nearly died of hyperthermia. Sam believes the fever may be linked with the fact that Grace never changed after being bitten.

Preoccupied with Sam, Grace begins to pull away from her best friend, Olivia Marx. Like Grace, Olivia prefers solitude and is deeply interested in the Mercy Falls wolves, often lingering near the woods to photograph them. Grace’s rift with Olivia grows wider when Grace tells Olivia she thinks Jack Culpeper may not be dead but turned into a werewolf. Olivia dismisses Grace’s suggestion, calling her delusional. While Olivia does not accept Grace’s suspicion, Jack’s sister, Isabel Culpeper, discovers on her own that her brother has become a werewolf. She reaches out to Grace and tells her Jack has been rapidly switching between human and wolf states and remains unstable.

When Grace tells Sam about Jack’s transformation, he grows worried for Grace and Isabel’s safety. Sam has seen first-hand that “newborn” werewolves can be violent, especially if they were violent humans to begin with. Jack, who has a history of bullying, could easily become a threat. Sam’s hunch is proven true when Olivia reveals Jack has been stalking her, looking for a cure for his werewolf state. When Olivia accidentally reveals that Grace is the only one who could know the cure since she survived an attack without changing, Jack sets his sights on Grace.

Sam seeks out Jack at his home to convince him to leave Grace alone. Jack tricks Sam and locks him in a freezing shed. In his human form, Jack abducts Grace from school. Grace manages to lure Jack to Beck’s house with the promise of the cure. Beck locks Jack in his basement, while Isabel frees Sam from the shed. However, the cold to which Sam has been exposed hastens his slide toward a transformation. Despite Isabel and Grace’s best efforts to warm him, Sam changes into a wolf and runs away into the woods. Isabel offers a distraught Grace hope: She thinks inducing an extremely high fever may arrest a wolf in human state, as it did with Grace when she got hyperthermia soon after her attack.

Isabel steals vials of infected blood from a meningitis patient from her mother’s clinic so she can induce a fever in Jack and Sam. In the interim, Grace gets a call from a stricken Olivia, who reveals that Jack bit her to extract information from her. Grace captures wolf-Sam with the help of Beck and takes him to the clinic, along with Jack and Olivia so Isabel can inject all three of them. At the last moment, Olivia refuses the cure, as she would rather become a wolf than die trying to be human. Sam briefly turns into a human so he can be injected but transforms into a wolf mid-way through the injection and escapes into the woods. Jack contracts meningitis and dies. Since Sam is not seen after the day of the injection, Grace and Isabel assume the worst for him as well.

As the novel ends, Olivia transforms into a green-eyed wolf, happy to be with her pack. Isabel and Grace bond, and a grief-stricken Grace begins to pick up the pieces of her life after Sam, planning to go on a trip to Florida with her friend Rachel for Christmas. A day before she leaves, Grace goes to the forest’s edge to load the birdfeeder. Sam, who has been watching Grace for days, finally reveals himself. The cure worked and Sam is now a human. Sam and Grace embrace. The story pauses here, to resume in Linger, the sequel to the novel.