New romance and dangers abound in this companion to the crowd-pleasing Wicked Fox.
As Vicious Spirits begins, Miyoung and Jihoon are picking up the pieces of their broken lives following the deaths of Miyoung’s mother, Yena, and Jihoon’s grandmother. With the support of their friend Somin, and their frenemy, Junu, they might just have a shot at normalcy. But Miyoung is getting sicker and sicker by the day and her friends don’t know how to save her. With few options remaining, Junu has an idea but it might require the ultimate sacrifice and, let’s be honest, Junu isn’t known for his “generosity.” Meanwhile, the events at the end of Wicked Fox have upended the forces that govern life and death and there are supernatural entities lurking in the background that will stop at nothing to right their world.
My Review
First off, here’s my review to Wicked Fox so if you want to see the book one ramblings from me, there you go!
Miyoung’s not a gumiho, not a human, she’s stuck in the between, what’s worse is that the between seems to be appearing more in the human world, spirits are being seen, people are being haunted by the sight of past loved ones, but what does that have to do with Miyoung and her friends?
Currently they’re all dealing with the loss of Jihoon’s grandmother, Miyoung’s mother, and the loss of their homes as well.
Somin is doing her best to pick up all the pieces for her friends, acting as nurturer and protector, but she finds herself distracted by Junu, the dokkaebi who seems to not get the hint and leave them all alone.
Junu feels he owes Miyoung a debt and so he’s determined to stick around and repay it. At least that’s the only reason he tells them he’s sticking around but it seems the immortal may actually not be the tin man and has a heart. He finds himself caring what happens to them and then he’s thrust right into the middle of it all as he’s given a deadline to fix the problem of the between. If he doesn’t? Miyoung will be visited by the reaper and her life in exchange will fix the problems, it’s her and her pearl that are at the center of it to begin with.
Too bad this particular dokkaebi doesn’t have his staff, something that could help when it comes to basically saving Miyoung’s life and restoring order.
I loved getting more of this cast of characters and especially loved getting to know Junu and Somin more. Not to mention learning Junu’s backstory was absolutely *chef’s kiss*.
The interactions between Junu and Somin are slow burning and full of this tension that just made me automatically ship them as hard as I shipped Miyoung and Jihoon.
I also really just appreciated that Cho shows you so many different types of mother figures and family structures. We had Miyoung with her rather strict mother, Jihoon raised by his loving Grandmother, and now Somin with her young mother who sometimes seems the daughter in their relationship. Not to mention Changwan and Junu’s similar father figures.
Cho once more just gives you this full world of Korean lore and mythology and she expands on it even more this time, we’re focusing on dokkaebi and even sansin in this book and still dealing with the ‘troubles’ of the gumiho.
There’s more dealing with grief and loss in this book and all of them really deal with problems in accepting their self worth. There’s so much at stake and they are trying their best. Overall it was just a fantastic sequel and stunning conclusion. I didn’t want to leave them, I definitely became overly attached to the group lol.
I am read this for my Vietnamese Iced Coffee prompt for #TheCoffeeReadathon.
4.5 HUGE cups of coffee from me, and you can bet this is also a 2020 fave read of mine just like book one!
The Caffeinated Reader 