Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I can certainly appreciate the beauty of this collection of short stories, but unfortunately I don't think this one was for me. There were a couple of stories I enjoyed but struggled with most of them.

I didn't enjoy this book as much as I was hoping I would. It felt a bit flat and unrelatable. Not for me, unfortunately.

UnfortuNATLY i really struggled to get through this short story collection. I was really bored most of the time. I enjoyed the first story and thought some other were fine, but most of them didn't work for me and we're quite forgeTtable. Foxes are a theme THROUGHout the stories, but definatly not recOgnisable in all of them.

It was the title of this book that grabbed my attention. And there is a theme of foxes running through most (probably all, though maybe I missed it in a couple) of the short stories in this collection. I'm reviewing it weeks after reading it, which isn't ideal, but I can still recall many of the stories so I think that is testament to the strength of them. And this is a strong collection - as is often the case, there was variation in how much I liked one story to the next, but overall it was really enjoyable and Lennan is a very talented writer. She can see and show human nature really well on the page, and often in situations which are compellingly readable. A lot of these stories could have been more than shorts, and I think that is both a good and not-so-good thing. Good, because I obviously wanted to stick around for more. But not-so-good, because I often felt that the story ended before...well, before the end of the story. I know it's quite common for short stories to be left unresolved, but it happened so often in this collection that I wondered if it's because the writer didn't know how to end them. But I would love to read a novel by this author, and I would recommend this collection.

In The Time of Foxes is a beautifully written, wonderfully evocative collection of short stories.
Primarily told with short stories set in Australia, the U.K., and Europe, In The Time of Foxes is incredibly written. Each story is a complete world, wonderfully plotted, and beautifully evoked, reeling you in to the lives of the characters and their surroundings.
I’d highly recommend this to fans of short stories, good writing, and moody, suggestive scene setting.

I tried hard to like these stories but I couldn’t get into them. I felt that they didn’t go anywhere and I DNFed at 30 percent.

Unfortunately this title expired in my reader before I had a chance to finish reading it. But from what I saw, it was wonderful.

DNF at 18%

Unfortunately I don't think this was for me at all.

I didn't enjoy the story or any of the characters, I spent the whole time confused as the switching of the characters was done abruptly and I honestly struggled to care about the story.

I think short story collections just aren't for me, and this has solidified that for me.

Only rating a 3 star as I haven't finished it, and it would be unfair for me to give it any less.

*thank you to netgalley and Simon and Schuster UK for the eArc*

This was an interesting collection from a debut writer, with plenty of short stories I'd happily read as full novels. Overall, the collection was a little hit and miss and I'm not sure the fox thread was as present throughout as it could have been. I'd be interested to see what the author writes next.

My thanks to Simon & Schuster U.K. /Scribner for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘In the Time of Foxes’ by Jo Lennan in exchange for an honest review.

“A kitsune could be a shapeshifter, a spirit being. It could appear in human form if this suited its purposes; it could come and go as it pleased, play tricks, lead men astray.“ - from ‘Fox Face’, on the nature of the legendary Japanese fox spirit.

Foxes find their way into each of the twelve stories of this debut collection, whether as women being described as ‘fox-faced’ and being secretly a kitsune as in the above story, as actual foxes in a London back garden or as metaphoric ones when an attractive older man is nicknamed the Silver Fox.

As foxes are depicted as tricksters the various men and women depicted within the stories have learned how to adapt to their circumstances, to be cunning, and change shape as needed. The question asked is have they also learned to be wise?

I love folklore linked to foxes as well as foxes in nature, and appreciated the fox theme running through the stories. I also enjoyed the international settings with stories being set in the U.K., Australia, Japan, and one futuristic one set on a Mars-like planet.

As with most short story collections this was an eclectic mix though overall I enjoyed all of them. The highlights for me were ‘In the Time of Foxes’, ‘Animal Behaviour’, ‘Fox Face’ and ‘Day Zero’.

Jo Lennan clearly has an excellent grasp of the short story format as for the most part these felt complete in themselves rather than leaving me wondering ‘so what happened next?’.

Overall, an engaging short story collection.

'Some acts happened offstage, unseen. That was what life was like. The death of Pickles, for example. They never saw the fox, the culprit. She saw no disappearing tail, no paw prints in the gutter. And maybe it didn't matter whether they saw it or not. What did it matter what sort of fox it was, a thin fox or a fat one, good or evil or in between. Maybe what mattered was what came next, what you did about it...'

This is a compellingly readable collection of stories in which each piece follows a different storyline and set of characters. In each piece there is either an allusion to a fox or a fox directly present in a scene, and the animal is often used by the narrator as a metaphor for describing a situation. Linking short stories together in this way is a clever idea and not one I've seen before, and Lennan executes it well.

Despite the large variety of stories and the differences of the characters we follow within them, the narratives aren't fragmentary. Each story feels as if it is part of a 'whole.' It is also to Lennan's credit that there wasn't one story in this collection that I didn't enjoy. Every character was well-written, believable and, considering the short legnths of each piece, impressively fleshed out.

The sentences are short, descriptive, to the point. Lennan has a way of getting across a characters' thoughts and feelings without using dispensible or convoluted language and this helps the reader attune to the narrative voice.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable collection and I will definitely be interested to read any future works by Lennan.

I am thankful to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster UK to for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

A sincere thank you to the publisher, author and Netgalley for providing me with an ebook copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This is not my usual genre, I’m more into crime/thriller books and even psychological thrillers too so I am extremely pleased and grateful to them for opening up my mind to something totally different.