"The Fox Wife," by Yangsze Choo

Our book club never fails to deliver on the stories based on myth and folklore! We've read books with mythological foundations from Scandinavia, the British Isles, Greece, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, India, southeast Asia, the indigenous North and Central Americas, and the Oceanic islands--and now we'll be including China. Our group also praised the author's previous novel we read, The Island of Sea Women. With that track record, it's a good chance we'll enjoy this story as well--let's see!

Regarding our location, if you need some extra landmark help, find your way to Belvedere Castle. Behind it you'll find two staircases diverging past fenced-in outdoor equipment. Take the left staircase, and keep bearing to the left when you get to the bottom of it.

Feel free to bring a blanket, chair, water, snacks, your friendly dog.

From Goodreads:

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

Manchuria, 1908.

A young woman is found frozen in the snow. Her death is clouded by rumors of foxes involved, which are believed to lure people by transforming themselves into beautiful women and men. Bao, a detective with a reputation for sniffing 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 that owns a famous Chinese medicine shop can cure ailments, but not the curse that afflicts them―their eldest sons die before their twenty-fourth birthdays. Now the only grandson of the family is twenty-three. When a mysterious woman enters their household, their luck seems to change. Or does it? Is their new servant a simple young woman from the north or a fox spirit bent on her own revenge?

New York Times bestselling author Yangsze Choo brilliantly explores a world of mortals and spirits, humans and beasts, and their dazzling intersection. The Fox Wife is a stunning novel about a winter full of mysterious deaths, a mother seeking revenge, and old folktales that may very well be true.