Terms are defined and many images for reference. It’s easy to read and good for general overview information.

This book serves as a concise entry point into the world of red foxes, offering fundamental insights into their habits, habitats, and general behaviours. It serves as a valuable starting point for beginners or those seeking a quick overview. The text is straightforward, presenting basic information in an easily digestible format, making it accessible to a wide audience, including younger readers or those new to the subject.

However, while the book succeeds in providing foundational knowledge, it falls short in depth and comprehensiveness. It could benefit from more detailed exploration, delving deeper into the complexities of red fox behaviour, ecological impact, and their role in various ecosystems.

I was intrigued by the book since I have received it for review. I liked how the info was presented: easy to follow with a lot of examples and background about these marvellous creatures. The images are breathtaking and I found the entire book to be very informative.
I recommend it to those who want to know more about this animal and to those who are at the beginning in researching the habits and life of foxes.
However, I would have liked a little of myth and folklore about these animals to be included and maybe a statistics in general about the fox not only about those in UK. This is the only reason for which I am not giving a 5 stars rating.

----NetGalley review ----

I love foxes and I love this book! This is a great, informative, and easy to read book for everyone who loves foxes, are intrigued by them, or want to learn more about wildlife and nature. The book is set up in a nice way, and it gives the necessary info everyone should know about foxes, their lives, and all the different kinds of foxes we have on our planet. It is a surprisingly quick read, and it did not feel like a chore or a school biology book, instead it is a fun read, and in the end I could not put it down.

Ever since I was a young child, I have been filled with adoration at the sight of a fox. From their beautiful silken coats, their big bushy tails, their smooth agility and their cunning wits, the fox has always been a creature I held in the most fondest regards.

This book is a fascinating and truly accessible introduction into the facts and background of foxes.

With an outstanding foreword written by Dr. Jane Goodall, Chloe Petrylak goes on to explore the "ins and outs" of the fox, in particular that of the red fox which is the most common of the mammalian world, explaining their lives, habitat and activities.

I particularly found the hardships of a fox to be of grim, yet necessary reading. As a fox lover, it was difficult to read of how nearly 80% of red foxes do not live past the age of 3 years old due to circumstances such as road accidents and hunting. The author also provides ways in which you can aid the fox at the end of the book which I found to be a beneficial addition.

So now, when I hear the foxes that visit my garden calling to each other in those chilling shrieks in the dead of night (which thanks to this book I now know is just one of 28 different calls!) I can safely say I know a wealth of information that I did not before!

Füchse sind aus dem Bild unserer Städte kaum noch wegzudenken. Aber auch wenn wir uns mit ihnen mittlerweile immer mehr Lebensraum teilen, wird unser Bild von ihnen immer noch von Vorurteilen geprägt. In Märchen und Liedern galten Füchse als schlau, aber auch verschlagen. Füchse gelten als Krankheitsüberträger, hauptsächlich von Tollwut. Chloe Petrylak will mit ihrem Buch damit aufräumen und ihren LeserInnen in die geheime Welt der Füchse einführen.

Für mich persönlich trifft der Titel nicht ganz zu. Die Autorin hat mir kein Geheimnis über Füchse erzählt, das ich nicht schon kannte. Aber sie erzählt sehr detailliert über sie. Am Anfang des Buchs gibt sie einen Überblick über die verschiedenen Arten von Füchsen.

Als es um das eigentliche Leben geht, beschränkt sie sich auf den Rotfuchs, der in unseren Regionen beheimatet ist. Sie erzählt von dem Moment an, an dem sich Fähe und Rüde treffen, bis die jungen Füchse den Bau verlassen und ein eigenständiges Leben beginnen.

Sie spricht auch darüber, wie die Füchse sich immer mehr Lebensraum in unseren Städten erobern und was wir tun können, um miteinander zu leben, ohne dass wir in das Leben des jeweils anderen eingreifen.

Auch wenn ich die Begeisterung der Autorin für ihr pelziges Thema in den Zeilen spüren konnte, konnte sie mir diese Gefühle bei der Lektüre nicht vermitteln. Für mich persönlich war das Buch etwas zu nüchtern gehalten, wenn auch sehr informativ.

Thank you for the advanced copy.

I love foxes, I am lucky enough to live in a village and see them almost every morning coming down through the fields.

This is a beautiful book with gorgeous illustrations that I think will be perfect for my nephew's who also love foxes.

This covers all facts needed and is so well written and covers all the basics and much more.

Highly recommended

What can be more rewarding and spellbinding than observing nature in action? Many of us including author Chloe Petrylak grew up watching foxes, both in urban areas and the wild. Wily, clever and agile, foxes are found in great abundance on every continent. The distribution of the red fox is the largest in the mammalian world. I have bottle-fed rescue pups as a young child, watched them deftly dig beneath wire fences, sneakily catch chickens, leap high into the air to pounce on prey, heard their goosebump-inducing screams in the dead of night and even nurse pups on a city park path.

Though very familiar with these beautiful creatures I learned more about them from this book including detailed anatomy, the words for a group of foxes, true foxes (and not), caching and that red foxes amazingly have up to 28 different calls. Those foxes which intrigued me most are the Fennec fox, Corsac fox, Tibetan fox (with its interesting almost human-like face) and Blanford's fox which can scale cliffs. Sadly, due to their worst predator, humans, about 80% do not live beyond three years, often through traffic accidents, lack of conservation and hunting. Not only did I learn more but the photographs spectacularly capture foxes from all sorts of angles in different stages.

Intrigued by foxes? This book is for you.

My sincere thank you to Pen & Sword and NetGalley for providing me with an early digital copy of this delightful book.

Foxes! They are fascinating and beautiful animals. This book promises to reveal the secret life of foxes.
The most prominently-featured species in the book is the red fox, primarily in the U.K. I was disappointed that there was very little information on the gray fox, which is widespread in the U.S. There are small sections devoted to other species of foxes, but the primary focus is the red fox, Vulpes vulpes.

The photos are beautiful and illustrate the text well to show each species. There were a few photos that were not that useful, but more on that later.

One thing that I was concerned about when reading this book is that the author relied a lot on internet resources for the information presented. While there are some reliable web sites out there, a lot of misinformation can be found too. I would take a cautious approach to the reliability of any information presented in a book that was primarily researched using internet sources. The reason? See below.

I ran across a few things that were inaccurate in the text.

Pikas are called “small, mouse-like mammals.” However, pikas are not rodents. They are closely related to rabbits, which are lagomorphs.

In the section on the tracks of the red fox, it is stated that the dewclaw will never be seen in a track in mud or snow. This is not true. Dewclaws often show up in canine tracks (fox included) when running at high speeds, or when they are moving through deep or soft substrates, such as mud or snow.

The tracking information is not all that accurate in this book. The only photo of red fox tracks is of some obscure tracks in snow, lacking detail enough to be able to identify the tracks in the field. However, this is not intended to be a track guide, so that oversight can be set aside. The text does repeat the (incorrect) information that a cat’s claws retract and will never show up in their tracks. It also states that foxes travel in straight lines, which is true when they use certain gaits, but is not, by itself, a diagnostic feature of their tracks. Also, contrary to the statement in the text, red foxes will not walk backward in order to brush out their tracks! This is the kind of misinformation you get when you rely almost exclusively on internet resources as the source material for your book’s text.

Overall, this is a nicely-written and illustrated introduction to the lives of red foxes, with some information about the other fox species of the world. The photos were decent, although the fox scat photo was too dark to even make out the subject. There are some interesting facts and anecdotes in the text. Some inaccuracies were included, but that is true of any book. It’s a fairly good look at the life of foxes and would make a nice gift to give to someone who loves these animals. It’s not a field guide, and it is not meant to be a field guide.

The Secret Life of Foxes contains everything you need to know about the Red Fox, primarily in the UK, with a brief glance at foxes of the word, many of whom aren’t actually foxes!
Foxes are not an endangered species, and can often be seen as a pest (eg when stealing a chicken) but they are an excellent example of an animal that has adapted very well to live alongside people in cities, eating almost anything they can find & providing a useful pest-control system at the same time! Unfortunately so many sightings are at the side of a road where one has been hit by a car.
This book covers basic facts in a very accessible and easy-to-understand way. The paragraphs are very short, the sentences snappy and the chapters nicely rounded. It is not a book that delves deep, or goes into scientific aspects, but its an enjoyable read that will appeal to older children as well as adults who want an introduction into the life & habits of foxes!
The author has worked for magazines such as National Geographic Kids and The Week Junior, and I think this shows a little in her simple writing style.

The photography is gorgeous & was potentially going to save the book, but alas it was all “purchased from Shutterstock” so is nothing new or unique. I felt a bit let down by this & the over-reliance on secondary material from websites etc rather than scientific research, personal observation etc (though well done for including such a detailed bibliography!).
Ultimately this is a collation of otherwise available information into a nice accessible little book, packed full of facts & anecdotes, that will appeal to anyone interested in the fox, or to people new to nature who would like to learn more about this fascinating & often unfairly persecuted creature. Unfortunately the lack of depth & lack of new information is what loses stars for me, but having said that, I did enjoy reading it and can definitely see it on the shelves of school libraries, as a coffee table book for people who like foxes etc.

#TheSecretLifeofFoxes #NetGalley

I love foxes and I loved this book about their secret life. I learned so many things about them and this is the perfect for anyone who is curious about foxes and wants to understand them better. It will definitely find a place on my shelves after publication.

This was a truly wonderful book, I loved learning more about these secretive and often misunderstood animals.

A quick book with easily digested facts about the similarities and differences between the foxes of the world. Lovely pictures of the different foxes are included.

This is not a book which focuses on obscure scientific fox specifics. Instead, it succinctly covers the basic facts in well-written paragraphs. I enjoyed reading it on its own, and can easily imagine any aged reader enjoying its contents.

Fox lovers won’t be disappointed!

Great thanks to NetGalley and Pen & Sword for granting access to a digital ARC in exchange for my opinions.

This book is a more simplistic read than I expected, but still a good one. The photographs are amazing, it is as if the foxes posed for them. I thank NetGalley and Pen & Sword and White Owl for the advance read.

An accessible little book, packed full of facts and photographs about the red fox. The opening chapter covering fox species from across the globe perhaps feels a little extraneous, given the focus of the rest of the book, but this is a minor quibble.

Recommended for anyone wishing to know more about this fascinating and unfairly persecuted creature.

Many thanks to NetGalley and White Owl publishers for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A decent but fairly generic read, I was expecting a more scientifically oriented book, about the author actually observing specific behaviour in foxes not a listing of the different kinds of foxes found around the world.

Library, library, library. The Secret Life of Foxes is a library must. This exquisite book diving into the many types of foxes and their behavior is so outstanding I was captivated!

I have a relative who is obsessed with foxes and it's brought such a huge appreciation of this spectacular animal that adds so much to our biodiversity. The book should be in the hands of every nature enthusiast and really anyone who walks.

The book clearly demonstrates how connected we are as a species to foxes and why they are such beneficial animals. We have acreage and have seen foxes on our property in the daylight mostly crossing on their way to something and when I see them I have been in awe.

Also, that this book has a forward by Dr. Jane Goodall, be still my heart. This book needs to get into the hands of every child and hopefully inspire them to write a book report and have a lifelong appreciation of foxes and the value they add to our world. Also, to be involved in bringing an end to fox hunting in the UK, especially with foxes on the severe decline why is this still happening UK?

I would love to thank NetGalley and the publisher White Owl for the opportunity to read and review The Secret Life of Foxes by Chloe Petrylak.

#TheSecretLifeofFoxes #NetGalley Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this novel. I encourage you to check this one out!

A fun book of facts about foxes, including the different breeds and all aspects of their lives and how they live/survive. This book also includes several beautiful pictures.

Beautiful two hour read on foxes. I found it fascinating actually! It was a very easy read, lots of information and can see this being an excellent addition for someone who wants to learn more on foxes.
I loved seeing all the different foxes and read on them mannerisms.
I thoroughly enjoyed this read and recommend it.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.