BOOK REVIEW — Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa
SHADOW OF THE FOX — 1st BOOK in the Trilogy
The story is A MIND-BLOWING AND GRIPPING PAGE TURNER. Every chapter of this story was so engrossing that I wanted to finish this book and I did finish the book in LITERALLY 1 DAY. [Btw, this is so Out-of-Character of me because I love reading a book slowly and enjoy taking my own sweet time to savour the language of a book]
The story is about a young half-kitsune (fox demon) girl called Yumeko with the power to craft illusions, who was raised in a monastery. When the monastery falls to demons summouned by a dark sorceress from the depths of hell, Yumeko flees with a fragment of the legendary “Scroll of a Thousand Prayers” that can summoun a wish granting kami (deity) — a Dragon which grants wishes only once in every millennium {yes, I too felt the Kung Fu Panda and the DBZ vibes here}
She runs from the now destroyed monastery with a fragment of the scroll. She must seek Master Jiro, an acquaintance of her adoptive father from the monastery where she grew up. Master Jiro is the only man who knows the path to the Steel Feather temple where the second piece is being protected. The legendary scroll was split into 3 pieces and the pieces were given to humans (the Silent Winds Temple), yokai — the tengu (the Steel Feather Temple) and the third is not revealed in the first book of the trilogy.
The story is compellingly narrated in two perspectives — one of the heroine’s and the other is the hero’s. The hero Tatsumi is a brooding, cold-blooded and dispassionate young shinobi from the renowned Kage Clan (Shadow Clan) which is also infamous for its engagement in assassinations and bending of rules by deviating as per convenience from the rigid Samurai Bushido Code. He wields a blade that terrifies his enemies who have heard legends of its bloodstained infamy, the Kamigoroshi — Godslayer. The sword trapped the soul of the most dreaded and powerful of the Four Great Oni (Demon) Generals of Hell, who paid any heed only to the Ruler of Jigoku (Hell) and no one else.
He is now dispatched on a mission to retrieve a piece of the scroll and to slaughter anyone that would come in his way. Yumeko runs into him and their journey begins as she is the only one who can lead him to the Steel Feather Temple where the piece of the scroll was located. On their journey, they encounter several supernatural creatures such as a kamaitachi, a wind witch, a demon bear and a kodama.
On their journey, a Ronin (a rogue samurai) named Okame, a bandit who joins them when Yumeko selflessly saves his life after he is injured. The tension between the rule — following hero Tatsumi and the rule-breaking was entertaining and hilarious to read.
Throughout the tale, a third character, a silver haired bishonen who seems sinister and yet keeps assisting the protagonists keeps making a cameo- {this guy gave me Yōko Kurama vibes} The trio have adventures with Gaki yokai and a yurei and I found this part to be Deus-Ex-Machina. We keep getting brief glimpses into the parallel movements of the antagonist, the dark sorceress through a minor character {I loved the sorceress, I imagined her as a kimono-clad Japanese version of the imposingly beautiful Soo-hyang from The Scholar Who Walks the Night}
I thought that the story would now lose steam, having run on such an adrenaline-gushing rollercoaster ride of a pacing. I couldn’t have been more wrong. THE STORY GOT EVEN BETTER. Travelling into the Imperial Capital of the ruling Taiyo (Sun) Clan, the trio meet their fourth member — a locally famous swordsman named, a silver-haired ikemen named Oni no Mikoto (the Demon Prince) who challenged people to a duel on full moon nights.
While I waited with bated breath to see the two ikemens — wielder of a demon blade, Tatsumi cross swords with the unbeatable swordsman, the Demon Prince {btw, I visualized Tatsumi as a mirror image of Kim Byung-yeon and I imagined the Demon Prince resembling Asukai Katsu}. The duel had a most unexpected conclusion to it and with their new fourth member, a foe-turned-friend; they reach the temple of Master Jiro where they meet a miko, a shrine maiden and I thought, now the story would definitely slow and become predictable (Wrong again!)
The story took an unexpected twist and I waited with bated breath when our protagonists were caught in a tense life or death situation in the Imperial Court of the Taiyo (Sun) Clan. Subsequently, our heroes get trapped and face demons and while I thought of several outcomes, the last chapter was the only one where I could predict what would happen. No, I am not talking about the hero and heroine confessing till death do us part (that is NOT what happened here). Despite expecting this one outcome, the author overawed me and threw me off guard with her choice of wording — a dramatic shift in the narrative style perfectly reflecting the psychology of this new character who was a latent one till now. The staggering difference between the perspectives of these two narrators like the unbridgeable gulf between the sky and earth was phenomenally mirrored by the author. Since the story was told from first perspective, my blood chilled as I looked directly into the mind of a character and realized just why his name became synonyms with mind-numbing terror
I assumed this was the conclusion and the author once again, knocked me off my feet by giving an excellent ending that was completely unpredictable and a terrifying twist to the whole tale. An important new antagonist is introduced and a seemingly random character takes a major action that completely turns our assumptions of the story and the primary antagonist on its heels.
I will conclude by adding that the sequels were equally compelling. The first book has left such a profound impression on my soul that I had to finish the entire trilogy about two days. Usually, the middle book of a trilogy is said to suffer from the Second Book Slump. The author pulled a fast one on me by making the second book live up to both the hype and my expectations and deliver on its promise. The last of this series is one which if animated would be an unforgettable anime, doles out every range of emotion accurately, making our adrenaline rise like a tsunami and our hearts burst into a million pieces. {I re-read the Last Chapter of the Last Book of this trilogy, playing the very aptly suited song for this chapter — A Thousand Years by Christina Perri} The Last Book of this series gave me the same bittersweet euphoria that I felt when I saw the conclusion of the animated movie, The White Snake (2019) that left me hungry for more of the Chinese folk legend.
I want to keep reading more from this brilliantly talented author {this trilogy should definitely be a Netflix Original series, it 100% deserves to be}and I hope she will write another Asian inspired YA fantasy, preferably, set in either Korea or any of the countries of the South East Asian region next.
