Shiver Review (The Wolves of Mercy Falls #1)

Grace is a girl who was attacked by wolves at a young age in her local woods. She doesn’t remember much of the attack, and she probably should have died from it, but a yellow-eyed wolf came to save her. Ever since that day, she has seen her yellow-eyed savior wolf watching her from the woods sometimes and she feels an instant connection with him. She notices that every summer the wolf is no longer there, and she misses her wolf, but then he appears again when it gets cold out. She’s gotten into a nice rhythm of watching her wolf and trying to figure out who he interacts with, such as the large white wolf that she sees with him occasionally.

Sam is a werewolf. During the winter, he is a wolf. During the summer, he sheds his wolf skin and becomes a human. Usually, he works in a bookstore and dreams of eventually seeing the human girl whom he saved. He knows that she has seen him as a wolf, but she doesn’t see his eyes and put two and two together when she shows up at the bookstore that he works for during the summertime. He is worried about changing later in the year the next year, and not being able to talk to Grace, but he doesn’t want to approach her in the wrong situation.

Jack is killed in the woods. After both her being attacked in the woods in the child and now his death, the town is beginning to believe that the wolves are dangerous. The police decide to shoot the wolves, even though Grace lies to try to stop the shots. Sam is shot in the process, turns into a human, and somehow ends up on Grace’s porch. After she takes him to the hospital and then sneaks him out of it. Once they are back at her house, they stay together since Sam doesn’t have a house since it is colder outside and most of the wolves have turned, and Sam tries to find Jack so he can be accepted into the official wolf pack and have a place of his own to stay when he is both human and wolf. Throughout all this, romance blooms between Grace and Sam, as they have finally gotten to meet each other after being apart and only watching each other for 6 years.

This book was just….not…interesting. It didn’t bore me. I didn’t have to force myself to finish it. But in the end I was left feeling more like “Oh. That’s it?” instead of feeling as if I had read a very in-depth and suspenseful story. Grace and Sam “fall in love” with each other over like LITERALLY NOTHING. He saved her as a wolf, they watched each other creepily out of the window for a few years, and then they meet each other and have an instant bond? Like geez at least have some Twilight imprint crap or something to make it more believable. They never even spoke, but they are instantly sharing a bed and practically ready to elope with each other after 3 months of speaking to each other?

The plot seemed to have some holes to me. He kept saying that he is afraid that if he didn’t keep turning into a human that he would turn into a wolf permanently and lose himself. If he loses himself when he is a wolf though, why does he keep watching Grace through her windows for 6 years? And why would he instantly fall in love with her if the wolf memories weren’t the same as the human memories? I know this is supposed to be a series and maybe the questions will be answered later, but these were simply things that could not be overlooked.

I wish that the side characters had more of their stories told. I can barely remember why Olivia and Grace fought, even though they fight for half of the book, simply because it seemed so insignificant to the story. However, they are supposed to be best friends, so it shouldn’t have been. Isabelle loses her brother to wolves, and while she comes into play later on in the story, the Culpeper backstory is never told in the book. Beck and the other wolves don’t have their stories told either, although some of them such as Shelby probably have a more interesting one than Grace. Sam’s story is told, and he has a…well it’s not really that unique….fine he has a…he has a backstory that isn’t nonexistent, but it isn’t special for his character.

Altogether I was disappointed by this book. I had heard good things about this author but this book seemed to cliche to me. I couldn’t bring myself to find anything special to say about it. Even the stuff in the book that was supposed to make the reader jump up, feel sad about a character, or even just have any reaction at all was just “Oh really? They did that? Wow.” to me. I will try to finish this series to see if the situation improves, but I do not have high hopes for it.

Overall Rating: 1.5 out of 5 books.