Author Kat Cho engages with the complexity of the gumiho legend, and how it interacts with beliefs about women’s sexuality. Wicked Fox intersperses the narrative chapters with mythological interludes on the history of the gumiho in general, and Gu Yena in particular. Miyoung tries to solve the problem on her own, but she is limited by the secrets that her mother has been keeping from her. Although she has trusted her mother implicitly for most of her life, Miyoung cannot tell her the truth about what has happened with her yeowu guseul without putting Jihoon’s life in danger Yena would not hesitate to eliminate him for knowing too much. Still, Miyoung is not at peace with what she must do to survive. She has also secretly begun selecting her victims with the help of a shaman, who can commune with ghosts, and help lay those hungry spirits to rest by having Miyoung avenge their deaths, ensuring that her victims are only the vilest of men.

Miyoung will only hunt on the full moon, when she can siphon the gi painlessly from her victims, sparing them a violent death even if she must take their lives. Yena extracts the life force, or gi, from men by consuming their livers. Parent-child relationships form an important part of Wicked Fox, and Miyoung has long had a rift with her mother, Gu Yena, over the method of feeding that keeps gumiho alive. Miyoung hopes that she can ignore the boy, and focus on figuring out how to reabsorb her bead, but then she lands in class with Jihoon, forcing them to face their newfound connection. The boy, Anh Jihoon, touches the bead, forging an unintentional connection between them. But in the fight, she expels her yeowu guseul, the fox bead that is the essence of the gumiho. Only the interference of a human boy helps her save herself, although she also saves the boy.

Miyoung is used to being a loner, but something goes wrong her very first hunt in Seoul, when she encounters a dokkaebi, a sort of goblin. Miyoung is half-human, half-gumiho, the nine-tailed fox spirit of legend, which preys upon men in order to retain immortality. Gu Miyoung has recently moved to Seoul with her mother, and started school as a perpetual transfer student. “Gu Miyoung’s relationship with the moon was complicated, as are most relationships centered around power.”

Wicked fox