😈🦊 The Fox and the Devil 🦊😈

• Kiersten White

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The thing I love most about humanity is their desire for beauty. That they create it for themselves and others, just to make life a little better.’ 

This follows a forensic detective’s obsession with a beautiful and alluring serial killer, who taunts her both with her crimes and with the letters she leaves behind. When Anneke Van Helsing opened her father’s study door and saw a ghostly woman in white crouched over his dead body, she embarks on a five-year-long quest to bring justice to her father and all the other victims. And there are a lot of victims. Anneke’s quest takes her all over Europe, from her home in Amsterdam to Budapest, to Prague to the Greek islands. 

When Anneke discovers her father’s journals, filled with ramblings of vampires and otherworldly creatures, the killings suddenly take on another, far darker, light. Could the strange murders be explained by the supernatural? Might the devil Anneke has been hunting not be human at all? If you couldn’t tell from the obsessive chase, the cat-and-mouse hunting, this had an element of Killing Eve and Catch Me If You Can that I loved! The themes of revenge and obsession were sumptuous.

The setting was perhaps my favourite part of this. The sumptuous descriptions of the cities Anneke visits, each booming in the late 1890s, were so fun to read about. I love a book with a good atmospheric setting, part of why I adore historical fantasy so much. It also had a great found family vibe, amongst Anneke’s detective team. I thought the first half was much stronger than the latter and it did lose a bit of momentum. But overall, this was such a thoroughly enjoyable read, blending murder mystery, sapphic romance and paranormal activity. 

Eagle-eyed readers might also connect the dots to Lucy Undying, which was very satisfying. Thank you to Del Rey UK for the digital ARC! The Fox and the Devil is out now, and if you’re looking for a twisty historical fantasy-turned horror, I implore you to pick this up.

Have you read the Fox and the Devil yet? Have I managed to convince you? 👀