Full name: The Snow Fox: A Novel

Author: Susan Fromberg Schaeffer Year: 2004 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Historical fiction, Fiction Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780393326529 0393326527

One thousand years ago, chaos loosed itself upon Japan, upending an era in which the arts flourished. At the dawn of 250 years of civil war, in the opulent court of Lord Norimasa, the beautiful but cruel poet Lady Utsu wages war with men's hearts and holds the fearsome lord and his devoted samurai Matsuhito in her thrall. As the two men raze Japan's landscape in futile battles for unity, Utsu falls for Matsuhito even as Lord Norimasa continues to love her. The epic romance of Utsu and Matsuhito resumes itself decades later, when they meet as vagrants so transformed by time that they no longer recognize each other; they are reunited through their mystical connection to a pair of snow foxes that are their only company in the Japanese wilderness. The heartbreaking story of their renewed love is fraught by the Japanese concept of mono no aware--life's ephemeral nature--that weighs on the lovers. Reading group guide included. Similar books: Cloud of Sparrows by Takashi Matsuoka Gai-Jin by James Clavell Shike by Robert Shea The Commoner by John Burnham Schwartz The Woman in the White Kimono by Ana Johns The Tale of Murasaki by Liza Dalby Sayonara by James A. Michener The Pillow Boy of the Lady Onogoro by Alison Fell The Swan Gondola by Timothy Schaffert Henry and Clara by Thomas Mallon The Immigrants by Howard Fast Heyday by Kurt Andersen The Tokaido Road by Lucia St. Clair Robson The Real Minerva by Mary Sharratt Domino by Ross King The Help by Kathryn Stockett A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd