These stories were atmospheric and well written but some left me feeling a little empty. Maybe it’s just I’m not a fan of short stories but most felt like they were building up to something a fell short of the mark, missing a climax. The prose is lovely though and that first story about the foxes stayed with me for some time, I found it quite sad.

Great story, I love audiobooks and this one didn't disappoint. A memorable listen that kept me entertained while crafting :)


Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

I never really read short stories that often but this one was an intriguing read, it was about the challenges of life and the decisions we have to make. It consisted of 13 stories and it was brilliantly read by the narrator although only having one narrator confused me on the gender of the characters sometimes but that's such a minor thing. I really enjoyed all the stories and they all shared quite a similar feeling and atmosphere to them. Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster UK for the advanced readers copy.

I didn’t love this unfortunately. Short stories, all loosely tied around foxes. The first story was good, as was the one in space, but some were a bit grim - totally a subjective opinion but I wondered how well the book transferred to audio. Dark, thought-provoking and definitely interesting.

Sometimes the narrator’s accent was a bit off but otherwise I liked the narrator.

A series of short stories of which about half I enjoyed. The theme of the fox is the link between the stories although the mood set is quite consistent throughout each story too. The fox is an intriguing animal and one I have a slight obsession with in general. For that reason I will keep my eyes open for a hard copy of this book to dip in and out of. The settings of this collection span the globe and beyond.
The narrator was easy to listen to and the stories that didn’t grab my attention passed me by. I did have to concentrate to keep track of the narrator for each story.
My thanks to #Simon&SchusterAudioUK and #NetGalley for gifting the audiobook of #inthetimeoffoxes by #jolennan in exchange for an honest review .

This is an interesting collection of short stories by an Australian writer. They are loosely linked by the notion of foxes so there is the odd cunning character, a bit of deviousness and a sense that the people in the stories are living day by day and on their wits.

The settings are varied, travelling from a back garden in Hackney to modern Russia and then to Japan and then looping back to Hammersmith for some drama rehearsals. The style is best described as diversionary so that in some ways the stories are initial drafts for novels, peopled by characters whose histories are cheerfully described in detail but who seem to be peripheral to the immediate plot. It’s not always easy to understand the point of the story until you get to the end and even then it can be vague.

What’s good about the stories? There’s variety and a sense of realism in the way they ramble and divert telling the back stories of different characters. The stories move slowly because if Joe Lennan has a character with an appointment she is likely to tell us what she has for breakfast and the streets she walks along to get there.

Occasionally I felt the backgrounds of the stories slipped into a kind of Wikipedia setting with details about local sights and history which were not quite authentic even if not second-hand. This may be unkind. For all I know, she may have travelled to all these places – or at least the ones which are accessible – but I wasn’t always convinced by the accounts.

You also have to sustain interest in the characters so offered a long account of dealing with strayfoxes in London which includes, I kid you not, a visit to Australia
a discussion about the ethics of fox removal and several slightly foxy relationships
it is possible that some readers will baulk!

The redeeming feature is how well the stories are written and I grew to enjoy their slow unfolding. This was an audiobook, and a long one at that, but the format suited Jo Lennan’s writing style and if you have the time to devote to them they repay listening.

I received this on audio from Net Galley for an honest review.

The cover of this fascinated me, and the blurb just piqued my interest.
What I didn't realise going into it was that it was a collection of short stories. I always find short story collections hard to give a rating, because some will always resonate more than others. It was the same with this, some of the stories were a definite five stars, but some more a three so an overall rating of four seemed fair.

The collection covers many themes, family and loss and love. The theme of foxes runs through each connecting them.

I really liked Jo Lennan's writing style and would love to see a novel from them. It is often lyrical and descriptive but has a very human touch. The characters are what I really connected with. There were so many incredible rounded characters, which for short stories is an achievement. I kind of wish that some of these had their own longer pieces of work.

I would recommend this for anyone who wants to start out in short stories. Anyone who is interested in character drive pieces that are thought pieces more than action.

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.

this book was OK but with being an audio book I was sometimes confused on the genders of the characters. But this genre isn’t for me unfortunately.

What an insightful collection of short stories! They cover such a range of characters, personalities and situations, some more interesting than others (depending on your personal taste and interests really, although I’d say that there ought to be something here for everyone), but all well-written, offering a brief but insightful look in the characters’ lives.

I really enjoyed probably half of the stories such as the one about the lady whose mother suffered of dementia, the one about the tense relationship between two cousins gone surfing, the story of the student hostessing in Japan, the unsuccessful break up story of the couple from
Hong Kong, the druggie teen and his lawyer- see how eclectic the topics are ?! But Jo writes them all well (even those I didn’t find that interesting) and what I perhaps loved the most about the book is the way these stories take place in different countries of the world, yet Jo describes them with such know how, as if she’s lived there her entire life!! I think that is a sign of a good storyteller.

I had the audiobook version of the book (thank you so much NetGalley!) which is narrated by Geraldine Hakewill. She has a lovely voice and accent (I believe she’s an Australian actress, but her Aussie accent doesn’t necessarily come across unless she means for it to) and it was a pleasure to listen to her in the garden on warm summer evenings. However there were a few instances where I ended up a little confused regarding who was talking when it came to dialogues as she does not act the dialogues, but simply reads them.

This is a fantastic collection of short stories, and I don't think there was a single story that I disliked. I enjoyed the variety of locations and plots, with the theme of the fox (which are such fascinating creatures) linking them all, with each story standing unique from the others.

There was a somewhat melancholy feel to the collection, but it wasn't overwhelming and the stories and some of the characters have stayed with me long after finishing this collection, and it is a book that I will dip into again and again. Much of that I think is because of the author's writing style, which is almost minimalist so that the details have greater impact and linger long past the ending of the story

My thanks to Simon & Schuster Audio U.K. for an audiobook edition via NetGalley of ‘In the Time of Foxes’ by Jo Lennan in exchange for an honest review. It is narrated by Geraldine Hakewill with a running time of 9 hours, 54 minutes at 1x speed.

“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 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?’.

In terms of the audiobook this was a very pleasant listening experience. Being short stories I could choose to listen to one or two in a sitting.

Its narrator, Geraldine Hawkwill, is an Australian actress whose work I enjoyed when she played the title character in the Australian tv series, ‘Ms. Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries’. She has a light effervescent voice that was well suited to this collection. She was its reader rather than seeking to voice the various characters. Her soft Australian accent was sometimes evident especially in the stories set there.

As I had both eARC and audiobook to review I did a combined read/listen for an immersive experience.

Overall, an engaging short story collection.

A series of short stories about life, it’s challenges and the choices we make to survive. At least, that’s my take on it. A parallel is drawn between the people featured in the stories and foxes, who have the reputation of being crafty and devious. One story – possibly the one I enjoyed the most - features a family of foxes who inhabit a London garden, but for the most part the inclusion of references to the mammal are peripheral and often somewhat abstruse.

Of the thirteen stories here I enjoyed about half of them with the remainder rather floating past me without making a significant impact. In truth, I’m already struggling to recall details of more than about half a dozen. They are set far and wide (England, Australia, Japan and Mars are all host venues) but that doesn’t really change the fact that they are all gritty, rather downbeat tales that share a similar mood and atmosphere.

I listened to an audiobook version which was very well read by actress Geraldine Hakewill. My only reservation is that with stories featuring a large cast of male and female characters and having just one reader meant that I was sometimes temporarily confused by the gender of a given character.

I enjoyed this collection of short stories. In my opinion the first half of the collection was stronger then the second. I loved when fox imagery was mentioned within a story it tied the collection together.

This is the first time I’ve listened to a short story collection and I loved it. I’m definitely going to listen to more collections in audiobook format.