Grace is torn from a swing by a pack of wolves when she is twelve. She is bitten and almost dies, but one of the pack drags her to safety. As she grows up the wolf who rescued her haunts the edge of her parents' property during the winter but disappears during the summer. Little does she know this wolf is actually a boy name Sam. His werewolfiness takes over during the cold months, and regresses when it is above freezing. As fate would have it, they finally meet during Sam's last months as a human (the changing only lasts so long). Various circumstances and trials lead to their falling in love. Will this winter end tragically, with Sam forever staying a wolf?

I thought cold being the impetus for the werewolf change was super clever, but overall the love story was bit spare in some details for me. Of course Sam and Grace instantly fall in love because she was already in love with him as a wolf. That was sort of creepy, but sure ok. There was quite a focus on bed time snuggling; I wish more time was spent exploring their relationship and why they actually liked each other. Sam was definitely the better drawn of the characters for me, with his love of poetry, music, guitar playing. Cute sensitive type. I'm interested enough to keep going with this series, but Maggie Stiefvater's "Scorpio Races" is a far superior tale (so read that one first people).

05/26/2014 - reread
I bought the trilogy for my Kindle and did a reread. I'm going to bump my review up to four stars because the writing is just so damn good.