Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Read if you like: Mischievous and clever main characters, Japanese mythology, a different kind of fantasy world

Reading goal: 16/100

Featuring Benny, the closest thing I have to a Fox.

Shadow of the Fox follows Yumeko, a young girl with a gift for illusion and mischievous magic that she has been taught to hide by the monks who have raised her. When her temple comes under attack by demons, Yumeko is forced to flee the only home she knows with an ancient scroll she has sworn to protect-- a scroll that can be very dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands. Kage Tatsumi, a mysterious and brooding samurai, has been sent by his clan to search for the scroll. When he and Yumeko cross paths, they form a reluctant alliance to keep the scroll, and each other safe.

I really liked how Julie Kagawa pulled from Japanese mythology when building the fantasy world in Shadow of the Fox. The lore was really interesting, immersive, and different than a lot of fantasy books I've read recently. Everything seems to be about fairies nowadays (looking at you, Sarah J Mass), and I love fairies well enough, but also this was a nice break and something new. (While reading this, I learned that Julie Kagawa also wrote an entire YA fantasy series of like 15 books about fairies that I somehow missed when I was a teenager. Am I going to read all of it? Yeah, definitely.)

I thought that Yumeko was a fun main character. Because she has "fox magic" as she calls it, Yumeko can be mischievous and clever, and she's a bit of a trouble maker. However she also has not seen a lot of the world and has this sweet, naïve sense about her, and I thought that the combination of her sweetness and her mischief made her a compelling heroine that I rooted for. At times, particularly at the beginning, that the plot felt slow moving, but the pace really picked up in the last third of the book for an action packed ending. There were some characters that came in pretty late in the plot I wanted to get to know more, particularly Reika and Taiyo, who were both interesting characters that did not have the page time to be fully fleshed out. Overall, this was an enjoyable read, and I am looking forward to seeing where the series goes.