Shiver

Shiver is the first of Maggie Stiefvater's fantasy fiction series The Wolves of Mercy Falls. The novel shifts between the perspectives of Grace, a teenager who was once attacked by wolves, and her werewolf love interest, Sam. As the werewolf's state is dependent on the weather, each chapter is titled with the name of the narrator and the temperature. Scholastic published the book in 2009.

The story begins as Grace thinks back to the wolf attack she experienced six years ago. She barely lived through the attack, but she describes the event as "pleasant and terrifying." A yellow-eyed wolf named Sam came to her rescue and somehow managed to take her home.

It is winter, and Sam visits Grace's backyard where she pets him.



Rumors circulate at Grace's school that Jack Culpeper, a mean high schooler, has been killed by wolves. Walking home one day, Grace hears a scream that sounds like Jack. She follows the sound into the woods and finds three wolves, one with human-like eyes. She thinks the wolf looks like Jack.

At school the next day, Grace learns that hunters have gathered in the Boundary Wood to try to kill the wolves responsible for Jack's death. She rushes to the woods and is pleading with an officer to call the hunters off when she hears a shot.

When Grace arrives home, she finds a naked, yellow-eyed boy on her porch. His name is Sam, and the hunters have shot him. She drives him to the hospital. Sam wakes up surprised to be in his human form, as he is usually a wolf all winter long. Grace dresses Sam in scrubs, and they leave the hospital.



Back at Grace's house, Sam tells Grace that he is part of a werewolf pack and that he changes back to his human form when the weather turns warm. Werewolves are also telepathic. He claims that Jack provoked Sam's pack into attacking. Grace, having been bitten during her attack, should have become a werewolf but mysteriously did not.

The next day, Sam goes into the woods to retrieve some clothes from a shed. Along the way, he meets a white wolf, Shelby, and a black wolf named Paul. Shelby is possessive of Sam. Paul can no longer go back to his human form, and Sam knows that this fate will befall him as well.

Sam begins living at Grace's house, hiding in her room. The two become romantically involved. Sam is careful to stay indoors or in the heat of a car, so he doesn't transform. Sam explains that Beck, the leader of the wolf pack, raised him after his parents tried to slit his wrists in a bathtub. Grace tells Sam that after the wolf attack, her father accidentally left her locked in a car, and she almost died of heat exhaustion.



On the day that Grace finally introduces Sam to her parents, Shelby attacks Grace. Sam defends Grace, and Grace's dad shoots Shelby, but the wolf survives.

Beck has gone missing, and Sam begins to investigate while Grace is at school. He finally meets Beck at his house and checks in Beck's noisy van. Inside, he finds three people turning into werewolves. Sam is angry at Beck for changing more humans, and he leaves before Beck can explain that the humans were willing participants.

Sam confronts Jack, and Jack attempts to stab him but instead locks Sam in a garden shed. Jack tells Grace that he has kidnapped Sam and won't release him until Grace tells him how she was cured of her lycanthropy. Grace tricks Jack into going to Beck's house where Beck locks him in a room.



Jack's sister, Isabel, finds Sam and brings him inside. Grace arrives, and the group comes up with a theory. Perhaps when Grace nearly died of heat exhaustion, the heat killed the werewolf virus. If they can induce a high fever, it may have the same effect.

Sam and Grace are on their way to Beck's when Grace hits a deer, and the windshield shatters. The temperature drops, causing Sam to transform into a wolf. He runs away.

Meanwhile, Jack bit Grace's friend Olivia, and she is now a werewolf. Olivia seeks Grace's help.



Isabel steals meningitis-infected blood from the clinic where her mother works. As Beck is trying to lure Sam with drugged meat, Beck changes into a wolf for the last time and runs away.

The others manage to catch Sam; Olivia, Jack, and Grace take him to the clinic. Grace telepathically draws Sam into his human form, and they inject him. As Sam is receiving his injection, he changes back to his wolf form and runs away. The girls inject Jack as well, but he soon dies of meningitis.

After a few months of waiting, Sam emerges from the woods behind Grace's house in his human form.



The novel gained recognition in the Young Adult community, making Barnes & Noble's 2009 Top Twenty Books for Teens, winning the 2011 Georgia Peach Award, and hitting at number 8 on the New York Time's Bestsellers list in the Young Adult Category.