The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo is a historical fantasy set in early 1900s Manchuria featuring shape-changing fox spirits (4/5)

The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo is a historical fantasy set in early 1900s Manchuria featuring shape-changing fox spirits.

I followed along in my physical advanced reader copy while listening to the audiobook which I borrowed from my local library. The author narrates this, and while I really liked her inflection–you can tell she’s a born storyteller–we don’t really get much differences in the way of character voices, which made things a little confusing for me at times.

The book started out a little on the slow side, but once I was about 25% in I was solidly in for the ride. In fact, I inhaled this book in one day. If you’re a fan of literary historical fiction or magical realism, you might really dig this.

We follow two point-of-view characters: the eponymous “Fox Wife” and a private investigator close to retirement. There’s a lot of exploration on how women were treated in Manchuria at the time and there are various religious elements sprinkled throughout.

I’m a big fan of folklore in general, and fox spirits are a part of East Asian mythology I don’t know much about. This book definitely opened my eyes and I’ll definitely be reading more about it.

CW: violence, assault, child death (prior to book)

I received a copy of this book to review. Thank you to Henry Holt Books for the complimentary advanced reader copy. All opinions contained herein are my own.

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