The Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy contains the three books, Shiver (Released 1 August 2009), Linger (Released 13 July 2010) and Forever (Released 12 July 2011). The books follow Grace Brisbane and Sam Roth. Shiver is written from both Grace and Sam's point of view. Linger is written from Grace, Sam, Isabel and Cole's view point. Forever is written from Grace, Sam, Isabel and Cole's point of view, with a small prologue from Shelby. The book series is based in the fictional town Mercy Falls. Author Maggie Stiefvater

Maggie Stiefvater

Maggie Stiefvater is a bestselling American author of young-adult/urban fantasy novels. She currently lives in Virginia. She attended Mary Washington College, graduating with a B.A. in history. After graduating, she worked as a portrait artist, specializing in equestrian art.; her art was...

 has said that the real town of Ely

Ely, Minnesota

As of the census of 2000, there were 3,724 people, 1,912 households, and 916 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,369.5 people per square mile . There were 1,912 housing units at an average density of 703.2 per square mile...

 in Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 would be the closest in destination to Mercy Falls.

Shiver

For years, Grace has watched the wolves

Gray Wolf

The gray wolf , also known as the wolf, is the largest extant wild member of the Canidae family...

 in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—is a chilling presence she can't seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human... until the cold makes him shift back again. Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It's her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human—or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.

Shiver has been licensed in over 32 foreign territories and remained on the bestseller list for over 32 weeks, selling 130,996 copies in 2009.

Linger

In 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 Isabel, who already lost her brother to the wolves... and is nonetheless drawn to Cole. At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love - the light and the dark, the warm and the cold - in a way you will never forget.

Forever

Forever is the final book of the trilogy. It was released on July 12, 2011.

In Forever, the stakes are even higher than before. Wolves are being hunted. Lives are being threatened. And love is harder and harder to hold on to as death comes closing in.

On February 14, 2011, author Maggie Stiefvater read a two-page excerpt of Forever in which Shelby was confirmed as being a narrator.

Character list

• Grace Brisbane was attacked and bitten by the wolves behind her house when she was 11. When she was saved from them by a yellowed eyed wolf, Sam, she begins to feel a deep connection with him. In Shiver they meet after Sam is shot, and begin a strange yet touching relationship. However in Linger it is not Sam's humanity that is in jeopardy but Grace's, as she comes down with an unknown illness and almost dies. She is re-bitten by Cole and shifts at the end of Linger. In Forever she tries to make her way back to Sam, but in her wolf form and with the ever present worry of shifting it becomes hard. And as the wolves are hunted by Isabel's father she risks losing not only her friends but her life. She has dark blonde hair and brown eyes.

• Samuel (Sam) Roth was bitten by Beck when he was only 7. After his parents tried to kill him by holding him down in a bath and cutting both his wrists, he was adopted by Beck. After Grace is pulled off her Tire swing and almost killed by the wolves, Sam saves her by shifting and carrying her home. When the wolves are hunted after the "death" of Jack Culpeper and he is shot, Grace finds him and they start a relationship. When they both discover that by injecting meningitis
  Meningitis
  Meningitis is inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. The inflammation may be caused by infection with viruses, bacteria, or other microorganisms, and less commonly by certain drugs...
  
   into their system shifting will be stopped, Sam and Jack volunteer. Jack dies and after Sam shifts halfway through the injection, Grace assumes that he has died too. He did survive and they are reunited at the end of Shiver. During Linger Sam has to come to terms that he is now fully human along with the help of an increasingly sick Grace, whom he loses at the end of Linger when she is re-bitten and shifts. In Forever when the wolves are under threat, Sam is injected by Cole so he can shift and lead the wolves out of boundary wood and to the peninsula
  Peninsula
  A peninsula is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland. In many Germanic and Celtic languages and also in Baltic, Slavic and Hungarian, peninsulas are called "half-islands"....
  
   Koenig gave them. He has black hair and yellow eyes.

• Isabel Culpeper was the sister of Jack Culpeper until he died. She and her family were originally from California
  California
  California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
  
  , but moved to Minnesota when Isabel was 14, before the books started. She found out about the wolves after Jack, whom the town believed to be dead, came to her. She was later told the whole story by Sam and Grace. It was because of Isabel that they were able to get meningitis infected blood from her mother's clinic. Isabel stays with Jack as he is slowing killed by the meningitis, and blames herself for his death in Shiver. Her and Cole have an on-off sort of relationship in Linger, even though it is clear Isabel holds some feelings for Sam. At the end of Forever, Isabel is heart broken when she assumes Cole has been killed, and cries with relief when he phones her in the second last chapter. Isabel was sent back to California, to her grandparent's, by her parents after she interrupted the hunt to let the wolves escape. She is a highly sarcastic person, and is describe as 'cold' by other characters. She has short blonde hair and blue eyes.

• Cole St. Clair was bitten and infected along with two others, his friend and band mate Victor being one of them, whilst touring for NARKOTIKA in Canada by Beck. He was introduced in Linger. After becoming a wolf be quit the band. He was known to have led a troubled life, experimenting with drugs whilst on tour. He was almost killed in Forever by Shelby, but survived. He's described as having brown hair and green eyes.

• Geoffrey Beck known as Beck to those closest to him. He was bitten by Paul when he was suicidal. He is Sam's adoptive father. He practised as lawyer during the summer months, when he was human, he bought a house for the pack from the money he earned. His wife died of breast cancer after Beck had shifted, it is known that he mourned for her on the day she died every year after her death. He is the leader of the pack when they are humans. Beck shifted into a wolf permanently, leaving Sam and Cole with the responsibility of taking care of the pack. He was killed in Forever by Isabel's father during the hunt.

• Jack Culpeper was Isabel's brother and also a werewolf. He was bitten after he taunted the pack with a BB gun, and was so badly hurt he was pronounced dead, he later healed himself and ran from the morgue. He died in Shiver when Grace injected him with bacterial meningitis in an attempt to stop him shifting. He was described as being a violent individual, even before he was bitten.

• Rachel is one of Grace's best friends. She is described as being hyperactive and as being the glue that held the group, Grace, Rachel and Olivia, together. She was told about the wolves by both Sam and Grace in Forever.

• Olivia Marx is also one of Grace's best friends. She was, along with Grace, fascinated by the wolves in Mercy Falls. She is bitten by Jack Culpepper in Shiver. She had the choice to be injected with meningitis, but decided she would rather be a wolf than take the risk. She was murdered by Shelby in Forever. Her brother, John Marx, found her death hard to come to terms with and blamed Sam for her death.

• Victor Baranov is Cole's band mate in NARKOTIKA. He had a sister, whom Cole dated and cheated on multiple times with female fans. He was bitten, because Cole did not want to go alone, in Canada whilst on tour. He died in Linger and was buried by Cole, Sam and Grace.

• Shelby is a troubled werewolf who was taken in by the pack after Ulrik found and took her from a place that was never named, but it is assumed she was sexually abused there. Thoughout the series, Sam states that what Shelby wanted most was for Sam to take over from Paul as alpha, when she would then be his mate. She attempts to kill Grace in Shiver to achieve this goal of hers, she fails when Sam steps in. In Forever she kills Olivia. She is killed by Cole during the final scenes in Forever. She is said to have white-blonde hair.

• Ulrik is a werewolf. He is said to be from Germany, and had kept his accent even after all the years he spent in America. He taught Sam how to bake bread, and he is where Sam got his love for german poety, especially of the poet Rilke
  Rainer Maria Rilke
  René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke , better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language...
  
  .

• Paul is a werewolf and is the leader, alpha male, when the pack is in its wolf form. He was the one who got Sam interested in guitar.

• Officer Koenig is a police officer who was introduced in Shiver. He had small parts in the first two books, but got a larger part when he was told about the wolves by Sam in Forever. He gave a family owned peninsula to the pack, when he heard about how Tom Culpeper planned to hunt the wolves, as a way to save the pack.

• Lewis Brisbane is Grace's father. He joined Isabel's father in the first wolf hunt in Shiver, after Jack 'died', which led to Grace falling out with him. As parents, Lewis and Amy, were described by Grace as choosing when they wanted to be parents and when they wanted to be room-mates.

• Amy Brisbane is Grace's mother. Both her parents were described as giving Grace a lot of space when she was growing up, making her the independent person she is, So much so that they didn't notice when Sam stayed in Grace's room at night. When Grace left, her mother got a kitten to help with the loss, showing how little Grace mattered.

Film Adaptation

Unique Features, in association with Warner Bros., optioned Shiver's film rights shortly after Shiver was released. A screenplay has been written by Nick Pustay but casting has not yet begun.
On the 3rd of March Nick Pustay tweeted

Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

 "To all my new SHIVER followers: Happy to tell you the SHIVER movie has taken a BIG step forward recently. That's all I can say for now..."
March 13th, IMDB updated it's Shiver page by saying that two new producers have been added to the job. Leah Holzer and Mark Kaufman have joined Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne to help produce the project.

Shiver

• Debuted at #9 on the New York Times best seller list
• Indies Choice Book Award Finalist
• ALA Best Books for Young Adults
• ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers
• Amazon Top Ten Books for Teens
• Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2009
• Border's Original Voices Pick & Finalist
• Barnes & Noble 2009 Top Twenty Books for Teens
• CBC Children's Choice Awards Finalist
• 2010 SIBA Book Award
  SIBA Book Award
  SIBA Book Award is an American South literary award given by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance , first awarded in 1999. Nominated books must be southern in nature or by a southern author, have been published the previous year, and have been nominated by a SIBA-member bookstore or one of...
  
  , Finalist
• Junior Library Guild Selection
• Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Nominee
• Glamour's Best Book to Curl Up With
• VOYA's Perfect Ten, 2009
• Silver Inky Award Winner

Linger

• Debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list
• USA Today Bestseller
• Wall Street Journal Bestseller
• ABA Bestseller
• L. A. Times Bestseller
• Junior Library Guild Selection Junior Library Guild-2010 Summer Jr./Sr. High

Forever

• Debuted at #4 on the New York Times Bestseller Series List
• Debuted at #1 on the UK Children’s Top 500 Books
• USA Today Bestseller