About this ebook
Yoshifuji is a man fascinated by foxes, a man troubled by the meaning of life. A misstep at court forces him to retire to his country estate, to contemplate the next move that might return him to favor.
Kitsune is a young fox who is fascinated by the large creatures that have suddenly invaded her world. She is drawn to them and to Yoshifuji. She comes to love him and will do anything to become a human woman to be with him.
Shikujo is Yoshifuji's wife, ashamed of her husband, yet in love with him and uncertain of her role in his world. She is confused by his fascination with the creatures of the wood, and especially the foxes that she knows in her heart are harbingers of danger. She sees him slipping away and is determined to win him back from the wild . . .for all that she has her own fox-related secret.
Magic binds them all. And in the making (and breaking) of oaths and honors, the patterns of their lives will be changed forever.
"Wonderfully evocative and gripping." —Charles de Lint
"A magnificent book, powerfully and profoundly moving." —Lloyd Alexander
"If you want lush prose, romantic settings, and a poetry-of-the-soul book, run—do not walk—to get this." —Jane Yolen
"Kij Johnson reminds us that the magic (and strength) of Fantasy is seeing ourselves in the mirror of the Other. Never has that mirror shimmered more seductively. Look." —Terry Bisson
"A beautifully written and poignant fable." —Kevin J. Anderson
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About the author
Kij Johnson is the author of several novels, including The Fox Woman and Fudoki. Her short fiction has sold to Amazing Stories, Analog, Asimov's, Duelist Magazine, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Realms of Fantasy. She won the Theodore A. Sturgeon award for the best short story of 1994 for her novelette in Asimov's, "Fox Magic." In 2001, she won the International Association for the Fantastic in the Art's Crawford Award for best new fantasy novelist of the year.
She taught writing and science-fiction writing at Louisiana State University and at the University of Kansas, and has lectured on creativity and writing at bookstores and businesses across the country. Since 1994, she has assisted at the Writer's Workshop for Science Fiction, hosted by the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas. Since 1999, she has taught a series of writing seminars at the GenCon Game Fair.
In the past ten years, she has worked as managing editor at Tor Books; collections and special editions editor for Dark Horse Comics; editor, continuity manager and creative director for Wizards of the Coast; and as a program manager on the Microsoft Reader. She has also run chain and independent bookstores, worked as a radio announcer and engineer, edited cryptic crosswords, and waitressed in a strip bar.
She lives in Lawrence, Kansas, with her husband, writer Chris McKitterick, a dog and two cats.
