Name: The Fox Wife
Rating: 5.0 (1 reviews)
Author: Yangsze Choo

About this book

Summary
Book Club Questions

Book Summary

Some people think foxes are similar to ghosts because we go around collecting qi, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking ...

Manchuria, 1908.

In the last years of the dying Qing Empire, a courtesan is found frozen in a doorway. Her death is clouded by rumors of foxes, which are believed to lure people by transforming themselves into beautiful women and handsome men. Bao, a detective with an uncanny ability to sniff out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman's identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they've remained tantalizingly out of reach—until, perhaps, now.

Meanwhile, a family who owns a famous Chinese medicine shop can cure ailments but can't escape the curse that afflicts them—their eldest sons die before their twenty-fourth birthdays. When a disruptively winsome servant named Snow enters their household, the family's luck seems to change—or does it?

Snow is a creature of many secrets, but most of all she's a mother seeking vengeance for her lost child. Hunting a murderer, she will follow the trail from northern China to Japan, while Bao follows doggedly behind. Navigating the myths and misconceptions of fox spirits, both Snow and Bao will encounter old friends and new foes, even as more deaths occur.

New York Times bestselling author Yangsze Choo brilliantly explores a world of mortals and spirits, humans and beasts, and their dazzling intersection. Epic in scope and full of singular, unforgettable characters, The Fox Wife is a stunning novel about old loves and second chances, the depths of maternal love, and ancient folktales that may very well be true.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

What folklore/myths/stories were you told as a child? Have you ever encountered folklore from other cultures? Would you like these folktales to become reality? Why or why not?
Have you ever heard of fox spirits? Have you ever seen a fox in the wild? Did you have any particular preconceived notions about foxes or fox spirits before reading The Fox Wife?
Consider the following quote: "Whenever humans encounter somethingstrange and novel, their first instinct is to kill it." (page 64)
Do you agree with this sentiment? Why or why not? Have you seen this instinct play out in real life?
On page 36, after encountering Shiro for the first time in a long while, Snow thinks: "That's the problem of living a long life. One ...

Media Reviews

"Equal parts detective story, folktale, and family saga, the highly anticipated latest novel by Choo (The Night Tiger, 2019) will appeal to fans of diverse, imaginative literary fiction, historical mysteries like Nilima Rao's A Disappearance in Fiji (2023), and fantasy like Marlon James' Dark Star trilogy." ―Booklist (starred review)

"Choo's writing is lush and the slow revelation of complicated relationships and reunions hum with tension. This is a treat." ―Publishers Weekly

"An intriguing vulpine mystery worth the suspension of disbelief...The rich Asian tradition of fox folklore provides the backdrop for Choo's complex and atmospheric tale of identity and discovery set in early 1900s Manchuria." ―Kirkus Reviews

"Magical, wonderous, transporting and illuminating, The Fox Wife reminds me that reading can be pure joy ... I was captivated from the very first word of this novel until its very last. Yangsze Choo is a writer of immense talent." ―Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, internationally best-selling author of The Mountains Sing and Dust Child

"A stunning story filled with wonder, mystery and folklore. I was utterly captivated by Yangsze Choo's exquisite prose and fascinating characters from the first page till the last. A remarkable tale, one that will stay with me." ―Sue Lynn Tan, author of Daughter of the Moon Goddess

"Like the foxes who populate its pages, The Fox Wife is vivid, enigmatic, and enchanting. Choo's fresh new fable conjures a world where danger and intrigue are forever entwined with sublime and sensory delights." ―M.L. Rio, author of If We Were Villains

This information about The Fox Wife was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

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Cloggie Downunder

A thoroughly captivating read.
The Fox Wife is the third novel by best-selling Malaysian-Chinese author, Yangsze Choo. Bao is a sixty-three-year-old widower, a school teacher until his wife died, now a detective. It’s 1908 in Manchuria, and he has had a fascination since early childhood with foxes, perhaps because his nanny used to take him to the fox shrine, perhaps because a childhood playmate described her encounter with a fox.

Lacking any formal qualifications as a detective, he is aided by a singular talent he acquired as a child, of perceiving falsehood. It also means that “Bao won’t lie. He’s scrupulously, almost compulsively honest. The dull buzz of falsehoods makes him physically ill.”

When a Mukden restaurant owner finds a woman frozen to death on the back step of his establishment, he asks Bao, for the sake of helping her spirit to rest, to find out who she was. Two things strike him in that process: he has a strong feeling that foxes are somehow involved; and he’s not the only one looking for a certain Manchurian photographer who may hold a clue to her identity.

Even after discovering the dead woman’s name, each fact he uncovers seems to point him towards a beautiful young woman also on the elusive photographer’s trail, a woman who, from all descriptions, seems to be one of the fabled, a fox in human form.

She tells us “I exist as either a small canid with thick fur, pointed ears, and neat black feet, or a young woman. Neither are safe forms in a world run by men.”

Calling herself Snow Bu, after two years of grieving, the young woman sets out to take her revenge on Bektu Nikan, the Manchurian photographer responsible for her distress. She follows his trail from Mukden to the port city of Dalian, where she finds herself in service to the matriarch of a famous Huang Medicine Shop family. The family is apparently strangely cursed: the firstborn son never survives beyond the age of twenty-four, after which the second-born inherits.

When the young woman learns of the current first-born son, Bohai’s recent association with Bektu Nikan, it seems an opportunity for her, but also influencing the young man is a charismatic individual, someone she recognises from her past, a fox who can’t be trusted, who doesn’t follow the rules that keep them safe: “Helping others, by the way, is one of the duties of a virtuous fox. Others include abstaining from lying, money-laundering, and killing people.”

Choo gives the reader a cleverly plotted tale of shapeshifters, murder, blackmail, enchantment, revenge, imprisonment and escape, and more. While Bao’s narrative often mentions human perceptions, folk superstitions and beliefs about foxes, Snow’s narrative includes personal footnotes and little backstories about what foxes might be up to, literally on the margins of society.

Thus: “Foxes are naturally wary, though that’s balanced by our insatiable curiosity. Capable of immense deception, they’re constantly tripped up by their own frivolous behaviour.” Bao is a clever and persistent detective although he will probably never know the full story. And presenting part of the story from the perspective of a fox is interesting and different. A thoroughly captivating read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Quercus.

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Author Information

Biography
Books by this Author

Yangsze Choo Author Biography

Photo: James Cham

Yangsze Choo is a fourth-generation Malaysian of Chinese descent. Due to a childhood spent in various countries, she can eavesdrop (badly) in several languages. After graduating from Harvard University, she worked as a management consultant and at a startup before writing her first novel. The Ghost Bride, set in colonial Malaya and the elaborate Chinese world of the afterlife, is about a peculiar historic custom called a spirit marriage. Yangsze lives in California with her husband, two children, and a potential rabbit. She loves to eat and read, and often does both at the same time.

Link to Yangsze Choo's Website