Fall and Winter are the seasons when I read the most horror. The cover of Foxfire instantly attracted me and I knew I would pick it up as soon I got it. I took the book to Cancün on my vacation and had a lovely time reading this on the beach. We are going to do something different for this review! I will be sharing my thoughts on the book and getting Rowan Hill to answer questions along the way. 🙂 First, here is what this story is about:
Foxfire
By Rowan Hill | Goodreads | Published 2023
In a remote Finnish resort, a group of potential investors gather to enjoy the Arctic beauty and the mesmeric Northern lights. But many of the guests aren’t who they appear to be, and everyone is hiding something–from the gaudy Americans to the adventurous German and Australian couple to the quiet Yakuza and his former Geisha wife.
Owner Mattais and his skeptical daughter, Aino, have ignored family legends, dismissing the warnings of honoring their ancient forest as silly, old-fashioned traditions. But when the guests start to be picked off one by one, their blood soaked in the snow, the old tales don’t seem so far-fetched anymore. A spectre haunts the forest and the survivors must decipher who–or what–is taking revenge.
Content notes include domestic and sexual violence, animal death and gore.
Foxfire – Review & Discussion with the author, Rowan Hill
Foxfire is a brilliant name for a book! Coupled with the cover art, it portrays the mood and setting of the book very well. Those lights in the sky are important in this story. I loved the folklore side! Aino is the youngest in the group. Her parents separated when she was a kid but she had a close relationship with her grandfather and after his passing, she chose to help her father, Mattais, set up this resort. Both her and Mattais represent the modern generations of the arctic where they feel less connected to their cultural legends than the earlier generations. Foxfire is an exploration of what happens when man tries to enforce ownership on something that he does not have any right to. Rowan, can you tell us more about foxfire and the legends around it? How did you arrive on this cover?
Oh boy, this is gonna be a long answer. Look, I am not Finnish or even remotely close to a Nordic nation. So I cannot presume to explain everything about Finnish legends and the awesomely expansive folklore. What I can tell you is the Fire fox (or tulikko) is a mythical creature with a fur that sparks if you pet it just the right way. It lives in the Northern Finnish woods and when it runs on cold nights, brushing branches, its fur sparks and flings light up into the sky and makes the Northern Lights. This is one of just many legends.
Now, for the cover, as a writer, I really enjoy having a level of creative control over covers and since I do often try to make my prose ‘beautiful’, I try to make the covers the same and often request of my publishers that I at least have a say in my covers (even in my contract). Well, as soon as I wrote the first chapter of Foxfire, I knew what cover I wanted, I could visualise it to a T. Could I do it myself? Hell no. Here is where I like to think I was a little bit smart. I knew to get an authentic feel in any artwork, I should use someone from the Nordic countries who often actually sees the Northern Lights. Using Instagram’s hashtags, I used the Finnish for Foxfire, (Revontulet) and found the Finnish artist Korpi Illustration and immediately loved their style and asked Bayou Wolf Press to reach out to them for a commission. They agreed and were such a joy to work with, letting me nit pick until I was satisfied. I can never thank them enough and am so happy many readers have acknowledged how wonderful the cover art is.
Foxfire has a cast with a vast background. In a short book, I was blown away at the skill with which Rowan fleshes out each of the characters. I think this is made possible as I got to know everyone on their first day on the resort. With multiple points of views, different people had different perceptions and knowledge of the other individuals. They also have their deeply buried secrets and agendas. I liked learning how they were connected to each other and the chain of events that led them all to this far away arctic resort. Sometimes I felt that the story read like a play – one character would exit the room and the perspective would shift to a different character who did not leave, or I would read about what happened to one character and I would learn later how much time has passed since that event through the other characters. The writing style had me hooked. Rowan, how did you choose your characters? What made you bring people from all over the world together on this Arctic to-be resort?
Thank you for the kind words! I really like that switching POVstyle as well and have used it several times to continue the story. Though this was the first time I used EIGHT characters for it. The first thing to know is that I am a big Agatha Christie fan, and who better to learn from when bringing the cast of characters together? I have always considered myself a ‘global citizen’, having lived in many of the countries I write about and it feels natural to have diversity among my characters (and in general, just more interesting to me). After plotting the story line, the characters kind of developed themselves, you know?
Rocky and Regina had a power couple gravity to them. It was interesting how Tetsuya and Mimiko’s relationship mirrored theirs in some ways. Of all the characters, I felt Carly was to everyone who she was to herself. While the others had feelings or secrets to hide, she was sincere and knowledgeable. I also enjoyed her early relationship with Kurt. Can you tell me more about her?
About Carly? Oh man, wasn’t she great? Easily the character I could identify with most given her tom-boyish nature and Australian-ism. I loved her strength and general outdoorsy persona. I don’t think there was one choice Carly did wrong in the story, all her decisions were logical and well planned. Isn’t that ironic?
Foxfire is a captivating murder mystery. And there is a lot of murder. I was not prepared for the first murder but as soon as it happened, I knew this book was going to be my focus. The whole time after I was constantly wondering about who would be next, making a guess, as if I had any say in who would be next. The characters have such rough histories and backgrounds that it was hard to create a strong positive connection to anyone but Aino and Carly. I was rooting for them the whole time. Rowan, did the murders happen naturally as you wrote or did you have a vendetta against certain people? Just kidding.
Yes, look, there has to be jerks in a story like this. And some of the jerks you root for. I know who everyone perceived to be the bad guy, but were they really? Weren’t they a little bit justified? And oh my gosh, no. The murders did not happen organically in my writing. In my experience, writing an intricate and carefully timed murder mystery like this takes lots of planning and for me, much reverse engineering so nothing comes out of left field or is classified as a deus ex machina. Planning is the name of the game in mysteries, and I’m sure Agatha would agree.
The world building is so good! I was reading this in broad daylight on a white sand beach but I was transported to a cold world with aurora in the sky, a frozen forest and an ancient presence. Something I wrote in my journal as I read Foxfire were Mimiko and Tetsuya’s separate thoughts on silence. That is something that winter gives space for – there is vastness of the cold and quiet. Everything is louder in the snow because there are hardly any other sounds. Everything is also brighter. Rowan made great use of sounds and sights in Foxfire.
I love winter horror and I spend most of the year in the chilly winds of where I live. Both of those together kind of make it incompatible for me to truly visit a place with such high potential for horror. You mentioned in your acknowledgements and also on my blog that you went to Lapland. How long were you there? What was that like?
I definitely didn’t stay for long enough! After the long years of Covid lockdown in Italy, I finally got my bucket list trip to go to Lapland and see the northern lights and enjoy all the frozen north had to offer. I was there for over a week, I think, and honestly, everything you read in Foxfire was authentic. The resort with the lodge and igloos, the trekking between buildings, the sheer distance to the airport and isolation you can feel just standing in the middle of a frozen field.
Did anything spooky happen there?
Maybe not spooky, but I did have a moment where I went for a walk at 2pm, and it is this strange twilight where the moon is nearly as bright as the sun, and I stopped walking and there was just nothing. No sound, no people, nothing. And then I realised I could keep walking and no one would ever find me or think about me until it was time to check out. And that in itself is frightening.
One arctic book that I love is Dark Matter by Michelle Paver (Goodreads, review). Are there any books set in the same area that you would recommend to people who loved your book?
I really enjoyed Near the Bone by Christina Henry (Goodreads). At first you’re not sure who the monster is meant to be, and Henry does a magnificent job toying with you.
Intrigued? Read an excerpt from Foxfire here and add it to your Goodreads shelf.
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