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The Fox Wife: an enchanting historical mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of The Night Tiger and a previous Reese’s Book Club pick

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The Fox Wife: an enchanting historical mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of The Night Tiger and a previous Reese’s Book Club pick by Yangsze Choo, and Yangsze Choo

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By Yangsze Choo, and and, Yangsze Choo

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3 reviews

Reviews

30 Jul 2025

Cerisaye

What a brilliant book! Loved the story, characters, folk mythology and setting, Manchuria 1908 near the end of China's last imperial dynasty. Historical detective novel, vengeance quest and love story, a magical tale beautifully told that left me wanting to find out more about the far northern part of China, its history and fascinating legends of foxes who turn into beautiful, beguiling people while remaining outsiders in the human world, perpetual Others. Foxes of course also feature large in Western European fairytales and lore, sly, cunning, tricky manipulators. In this book they are more nuanced. Meeting one has lasting...

What a brilliant book! Loved the story, characters, folk mythology and setting, Manchuria 1908 near the end of China's last imperial dynasty.

Historical detective novel, vengeance quest and love story, a magical tale beautifully told that left me wanting to find out more about the far northern part of China, its history and fascinating legends of foxes who turn into beautiful, beguiling people while remaining outsiders in the human world, perpetual Others.

Foxes of course also feature large in Western European fairytales and lore, sly, cunning, tricky manipulators. In this book they are more nuanced. Meeting one has lasting impact on those who encounter foxes who live long and even thrive in the human world, good and bad just like the humans who see them as animals.

An enthralling read that made me greedy for more stories of Snow, Kiro and Kuro on their 1,000 year paths to enlightenment.

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20 Mar 2025

St Regulus Sue L

I loved the author’s previous novel, and so was really looking forward to this one. Unfortunately, it just didn’t have the same impact . This was a delightful tale, but I found the different timelines and viewpoints hard work, especially during the first half of the book, and had to keep backtracking to refresh my memory. In fairness this may have been due to my only being able to ‘dip’ into the book due to time constraints . As the novel progressed the different strands converged, making for a much easier read.

17 Mar 2025

Skeet

I found "The Fox Wife" to be a very good read. The setting for this historicl mystery was China in last of the Qing Empire (early 1900's). A well dressed young courtesan is found frozen to death in the doorway. Bao is a middle-aged detective who is hired to find out who she is and why she died in this fashion. Since he was a child, Bao has had the uncanny ability to know when someone is telling the truth. Snow is a not quite beautiful but sosmehow alluring servant girl who is...

I found "The Fox Wife" to be a very good read. The setting for this historicl mystery was China in last of the Qing Empire (early 1900's). A well dressed young courtesan is found frozen to death in the doorway. Bao is a middle-aged detective who is hired to find out who she is and why she died in this fashion. Since he was a child, Bao has had the uncanny ability to know when someone is telling the truth.
Snow is a not quite beautiful but sosmehow alluring servant girl who is seeking a murderer. She follows the trail from Manchuria to Japan and back. Her whole reason for living is to find him and get her revenge. The lives of these two interesting people are intertwined in very special ways.
We readers learn of worlds of mortals and spirits and Fox gods. This genre bending book is entertaining and educational and I would recommend it to all. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because at times I found it confusing jumping from the viewpoint of one character to another and one era to another but I thoroughly enjoyed "The Fox Wife".

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