Review: The Fox Wife - Yangsze Choo

After the death of her daughter, Snow was despondent. For 2 years she could do nothing but grieve. When she reached the stage of anger, it wouldn't go away and so she set off on a journey to seek vengeance on those who caused her daughters demise.

Bao is a detective of sorts. After an incident when he was a boy, he developed the ability to sense when people are lying to him. He is brought in to solve the case of a beautiful young woman who has been found murdered and for some reason everything keeps pointing to foxes.

Mythology based fantasy has slowly become one of my favorite genres to read. Extra points if it is historical instead of contemporary. There's something about historical fantasy that makes it seem a bit less fantastical and a little more real. My love for mythology started with Madeline Miller and Jennifer Saint. In recent years there has been a growing amount of fantasy based on Asian and African mythology. If a book is even hinted at being based on mythology (from anywhere on earth), I am buying it up and reading it.

I have been waiting to read The Fox Wife since it became available on Netgalley. I didn't get the ARC and had to wait what felt like years to finally get my hands on it. Book of the Month offered it as one of their February 2024 books, which made that month an easy decision for me.

I read The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo a few years ago, which gave me a smidge of an idea what The Fox Wife would be like. There is something ethereal about the way she writes her female main characters. I finished both books feeling like I had been entranced and that the entire thing had been a dream. That is to say, you can go into a Yangsze Choo book knowing that the writing will be beautiful and light even when dealing with some of the more difficult topics,

The Fox Wife is told in dual POV. You get to view the world through the eyes of both Bao and Snow as they each travel down two paths that are set to converge. As the story unfolds there are a few ways that you can see the two coming together; passing each other by with barely a glance, or a head on collision. Throughout the story we are introduced to quite a few other characters, and each one moves the tale in just the right amount that you feel the loss of them when the part they play is complete. The Fox Wife is a thoroughly enveloping tale that will leave you feeling enchanted from start to finish. The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo gets ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 stars for me, only because I felt we lacked a little closure on Bao's childhood tale.

If you haven't read anything from Yangsze Choo before and love a good supernatural read I highly suggest The Ghost Bride. The Netflix show doesn't really do the book justice and removed a lot of elements that made the book an incredible adventure.

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