Red Sage Publishing, $4.50, ISBN 978-1-60310-270-4
Fantasy Erotica, 2009
The Kitsune, or Japanese fox spirit, of this story is Sakura, our heroine. On her first excursion into the human realm, she heads over to our hero Joe Takai’s place to help him find his way. Still grieving from his mother’s passing, Joe ends up sleeping with Sakura the moment she shows up, but to his chagrin, she’s not leaving him that easily the morning after. Can Sakura fill all the empty spaces in Joe’s heart?
There is some really nice emotional drama late in the story, and on the whole, this novella is a very readable one. There are plenty of love scenes and there are some decent emotional payoff late in the story to ensure that this story isn’t just all about the sex.
This is a personal prejudice of mine, however: I don’t like Sakura’s child-like personality here. She’s very naïve and, despite her less-than-human origins, she is very dependent on Joe to protect her as she knows very little about this world. I can’t help wondering how she’s going to cope in her relationship with Joe, unless she wants to be as clichéd as her name and play the submissive Japanese doll, I guess.
Still, this story is fun while it lasts, so it’s not that bad.
