Journalist, short story writer, and lecturer Nalbro Isadora Bartley (1888 – 1952) published at least twenty-five novels between 1919 and 1934, sometimes releasing two in a year. The Fox Woman (1928) was her 19th novel. 

At the start of The Fox Woman, whose cover blurb says, “The Fox Woman ever takes but never gives,” we are in the 1880s. Gender-neutrally-named “tomboy” Stanley is only seven but already her widowed father, Millard Ames, is in awe of her.

“There was something about Stanley that he could not gainsay— something so persuasive yet determined that he found himself yielding to her slightest request.” Stanley’s mother died in childbirth and her father has since dedicated himself to her, as his late wife’s friend Maggie has dedicated herself to him, though with no expectation of reciprocity. Read More→