Audiobook Review – The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo, Narrated by Yangsze Choo (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Length: 14 hours and 37 minutes
Publisher:‎ Macmillan Audio
Release Date: February 13, 2024
ASIN: B0C74TX2R1
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Bought on Audiobook
Rating: 4/5 stars

“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.

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I bought this on audiobook.

Thoughts: This was well done and I enjoyed the foxes and how they mess everything up for everyone. The historical Asian setting was well done too.

Snow has lost her child, and the men who caused this are going to pay. Meanwhile, the investigator, Bao, is trying to track down the cause of a courtesan found frozen in a doorway. Snow takes a job as a mide near the man who killed her child, but little does she know that there are two other foxes aside from herself involved in this family’s affairs. Bao is a bit different from everyone, he was influenced by a fox when he was little and can tell when people tell a lie. As Bao tries to unravel the mystery of this missing woman he keeps running into tales about foxes.

I am getting a lot of Asian history in the last couple books I have read. This was an intriguing look into 1908 Manchuria, but that wasn’t really the focus of the book. There is a lot of focus on how poorly women are treated during that era and what is expected of men. You are starting to see just a hint of Western influence creeping in as well. However, this book is more about the foxes (who can change between fox and human and are incredibly long-lived) and how they wreck havoc on the people around them.

I enjoyed the idea of a long-lived race of foxes and how their beauty and influence so thoroughly mess with people. We learn that Snow has tried to be a different kind of fox, but has reverted to a more hostile viewpoint after the death of her fox-child at the hands of men.

I did find this sluggish at points and also struggled with what the point was of everything. Bao’s investigation never felt very well wrapped up to me and Snow’s quest for revenge also feels very anti-climatic. As much as I enjoyed the foxes, at points this story feels like everyone is just bumbling around making trouble for everyone else.

The story alternates POV between Snow and Bao. I wasn’t a huge fan of this, especially on the audiobook version. This may have been solely an audiobook issues but the transitions between Snow and Bao were very abrupt and often I would miss them completely. I would then be very confused for a few minutes until I figured out that we had switched POV; then I would have to pause and reconsider what I had just listened because it was coming from Bao and not Snow or visa versa. It would have been nice to have a pause between transitions or different voices for the different characters or something. This was narrated by the author, and generally speaking it was beautifully done, but the POV transitions were an issue.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed the foxes, setting, and characters here. The story is a bit slow at points, and the plot feels haphazard. The audiobook narration sounded beautiful, but the transitions between POVs were hard to follow and made things confusing at times. I would recommend if you are interested in historical China and think the idea of following around a bunch of meddling mythological foxes sounds like fun (and mostly it is pretty fun).