This is an urban fantasy romance based in Korean mythology and it’s got epic battles, a detective mystery, and dramatic confessions of love. It ends tragically, but with lots of room for hope at the end. 

Hani— a Gumiho who has long since given up her life as the scarlet fox, still too full from her rampage where she gorged on far too many men’s livers. Now she works in a coffee shop, cringing as the beans are ground and serving the worlds most irritating customer, the fallen god Seokga. She trips up when two men attack her, bringing out an investigation into the scarlet fox once more.

Seokga— the trickster god has been diminished, forced to remain in the human realms as penance for his most recent failed trick. He lead an army of unrulies, but only claimed the throne for a matter of minutes. Now he works as a detective, tracking down the very unrulies he once lead into battle. He must catch and dispatch 20,000 of them before his brother will let him back into his power and the realm of the gods.

Seokga is called upon to solve a recent string of murders involving the famed scarlet fox. Hani plants herself squarely in his path as his assistant to try and misdirect him. Feelings are caught. Drama ensues.

These two fall head over heels for each other in such an endearing way. I would label them as grumpy x sunshine, except they are really more grumpy x grumpier.  I had a great time reading this ARC and fell in love with these characters.

This books is so dramatic and I loved it. Light dom/sub, a platonic soulmate and a romantic soulmate, and all the theatrics! It was a quick and very sweet read. 

"...what I call minor feelings: the radicalized range of emotions that are negative, dysphoric, and therefore untelegenic, built from the sediments of everyday racial experience and the irritant of having one's perception of reality constantly challenged and dismissed."
Part memoir and part cultural criticism, minor feelings is a powerfully insightful books. Cathy Park Hong has a well crafted voice and a interesting insight into US culture. I have quite a few quotes and ideas that I kept having to pause the audio book and pull out a paper copy to write down to ponder later.
I hate that the bar for trans people is in hell, but they are just casually welcomed and considered in this book and for that I am grateful. 

 

When Women Were Dragons speaks of silence around women’s issues. That pseudo-peace that people are terrified of breaking. The white wash that keeps people trapped in their own pain. The space where shame flourishes.  This book was fairly triggering for me because I lived in a similar silence, drowning in my own self-hatred, for years, and I'm sick of it. Reading this book didn't help me process that trauma, I did not find catharsis in these pages. 

Barnhill is partly right. This peace that we cling to is a mirage, a white wash, a falsity. Who among us is experiencing peace? Post pandemic, when finances are hell and mental health issues are rising, when the world is on fire around us, when we are witnessing a genocide live streamed to our phones, when exhaustion seeps out of every pore. Where is the peace? It’s time to talk about difficult things. It’s time to acknowledge them, name them, voice them. How else can we ever parse through the sins of our past, heal, and build something better?

The thing is, this isn't news. And I found the representation of the repressed to be incredibly narrow with no concept for intersectionality.  I was not endeared to the dragons who returned and tried to fit in, because their version of improving the world is not the improvement I want. It is still a whitewash. So you elevated the dragons, what about everyone else?

 

For my part, I want no more time in the silence. I’d rather read about the dragons who broke free from it, because I want to know what we do after the silence. I want to read the stories of those who ripped the silence away with their claws, those who are building something beyond the shame. I want dragons with a broader view, who have listened to the people who have been telling us this for centuries. This fight is not knew. It's been going on longer than any of us have been alive. And there is a wealth of knowledge from communities who have been fighting it, if we would just shut up and listen. If we win the battle for only one group, that isn't enough. We're not free until all of us are.

 Science-fiction and magic mix in this fascinating space drama. It’s got spaceships that cast counterspells, slightly sentient swords, and weapons that level up when exposed to wells of energy. There’s space battles and reanimated corpses and void wyrms hell bent on human’s destruction. I greatly enjoyed Chris Fox’s worldbuilding.

Mages gain access to eight different types of magics (fire, void, dream, air, life, water, spirit, earth) by visiting catalysts, powerful places that arise when gods die. The magic is mixed with technology that allows the mage to harness and control the forces of whatever magic type they are using. Hence the term, Tech Mage.

These magical tools are absolutely necessary against the void wyrms who are hell bent on human’s destruction. These things don’t go down easy, and it takes everything you’ve got when you battle against them. This book contains a lot of death, some amnesia, and even a tiny bit of trauma bonded family. At the end of it, I’m ready for the next book, and eager to see what else Fox has in store in terms of lore.