#Fox's tongue and Kirin's Bone

[muffinlance]

The most embarrassing thing just happened and I needed to share. My copy of Kirin's Bone just came in and I was looking at the cover and immediately was like "who the F is Allison Kovacs?" And then I realized that your real name is in fact not Muffin Lance. I have never felt dumber in ny life

You are a delight and I'm glad you exist

[bayofalgecirascranes]

Aaron Fox'sTongue by @muffinlance character of all time. He's an ex-ish assassin thief and a master of scheming who just sorta accidentally fell into pretending to be a spy-in-training for people who would have killed him on-sight. His bright idea to get himself some leeway for this ruse was to pretend to be someone who is pretending to be him. He kills both animals and humans with the same sort of value. He is so against cannibalism that he won't eat any meat of any kind. He is a strict vegeterian who won't even eat meat to keep his cover from being blown. He was so food insecure before that he stows food away in his pockets Just In Case. When he was trapped as a wolf for several weeks, he practiced barking in a way that sounded exactly like the word "woof" just to mess with people. One of his favorite pastimes is antagonizing a specific member of the Royal Guard and sometimes he doesn't even do it intentionally. He doesn't listen to dead men but that just means he'll kill anyone he wants to stop listening to. He was late to his own death so now he has an ability that lets him know if someone is scheduled to die within the next one-to-one-hundred business days. He wanted to kill a woman so bad that it got in the way of someone else's assassination attempt. He has killed so many people but he can't just let a stranger die for no reason. He catches feelings of friendship towards anyone who doesn't try to kill him after a handful of conversations, with very few exceptions. He doesn't trust anyone completely, and won't even let the 3rd person limited narrator tell the readers parts of his plans until they become relevant. He is so Ace that he overlooked a major development that kinda led to the downfall of a kingdom. The reason he was in a position to accidentally kind of topple a kingdom in the first place was because he kind of accidentally toppled the kingdom he was raised in by on-purpose killing its king. He willingly and knowingly wears cloaks that he considers to be equivalent to human skin. He spent half the Spring stealing specific "human skin" cloaks so that the people whose culture those skinned people belonged to could give them a proper funeral and so that their leader would trust him. Some of his best friends are animals. Some of his worst enemies too. He isn't keen on horses and he doesn't trust whales. He is extremely intelligent. He just learned how to write his own name two weeks ago and he still can't read calligraphy. His dead brother was supposed to be the Saviour of Humanity.

[art-emisz]

COVER REVEAL for @muffinlance's novel The Skin Stealer's Son, sequel to Fox's Tongue and Kirin's Bone!

[frankencanon]

It has arrived...!! 🦊❤️‍🔥🐲

Fox's Tongue and Kirin's Bone by Allison M. Kovacs (@muffinlance)

[lemonduckisnowawake]

Hmmm. I see. So what modernity wants in their stories is morally grey characters - not in the sense that they are merciless killers with good hearts but in the sense that they are flawed but that the lines between good and evil are too blurry to properly make out. And they want those characters of ambiguous morality to make choices that still end up for the better or everyone and those they care about because perhaps what matters deep down inside is caring. More than a story where the definitions of good and evil are properly outlined, we want a story where the choices we make matter, that even if the skies are grey, we can still paint color in this world

[awritersbro]

@muffinlance the copy of Fox’s tongue has changed hands, and as such so has the isopoppy @windwalker-chrysalis made me for my birthday! It is very good.

[daylyluck]

I made some memes to tide me over until the next chapter of @muffinlance's fox's tongue and kirin's bone drops and i get to hear what my beloved boy aaron is up to (i'm sure he's having a normal day and no poison is involved):

and finally, my constant state of being for the last year, but ESPECIALLY after the second-to-most-recent chapter:

[tonhalszendvics]

Let me reveal two things with one picture: my hand and my first 5 star read this year.

I loved this. The world building is phenomenal. The world was creative, the creatures are making sense. The world and the characters are interacting, it's not just a setting, it's the whole point. The characters are interesting, they have layers (of multiple trauma). They are according to their age and are not annoying, which is a high bar for young people. This is kinda dark, but not too dark. It was perfect for my taste, especially with the fact that there is no romance in it, apart from the family drama. I loved the bickering, the fact that the different people have different kind of humour, but they make it work?? To be one big good thing? I just can't.

Will I be recommending this book to everyone in the next twenty years? Yes. Yes, I will, and I won't be ashamed of it.

Check out the author's tumblr: @muffinlance

[chapter-title-tournament]

Round 5, Match 3

Hiding a Body and Other Relatable Crimes (Fox's Tongue and Kirin's Bone, Allison M. Kovacs)

In Which Sophie Expresses Her Feelings with Weed-Killer (Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones)

[anaurorafanblog]

Aaron from Fox's Tongue and Kirin's Bone would really like Falst i think. Maybe even to the point of trying to befriend him without any ulterior motives.

I'm... not sure if that feeling would be reciprocated. Considering the fact that literally everything about Aaron is sketchy at best and this feeling only increases the more a person talks to him.

Despite all their disagreements regarding things like "how much murder is too much murder" and "what's better: being honest and upfront with people or playing them to your advantage like a Rakhn-damned fiddle" their most heated argument is about the benefits of keeping a pocket pantry vs just eating food when you have it. ("If you save it for later, you've something to nibble on the next time your stomach decides that it's hungry." "Well you wouldn't feel that hungry again so quick if you just ate it all in one sitting!"

One thing they do agree on: neither of them are big fans of Open Sky.

[suzetteisblue]

It's here and it's beautiful 😭😭😭

@muffinlance the Australia books are arriving!

[muffinlance]

Signed Book Pre-Order

The Skin Stealer's Son, book two in the Fox's Tongue and Kirin's Bone series, comes out July 9th, 2024! From now until June 30th, you can pre-order signed copies of books one and two at my website. You can also get your totally-Amazon-free ebook copies through there. Thank you for your support! <3

Cover art by the amazing Lakatos Csenge @art-emisz

[id (same as the artist's alt text): The front cover of The Skin Stealer's Son by Allison M. Kovacs. The illustration is in a simplistic style with thick lines and saturated colors. There is a Celtic knot life tree in the middle, its branches and roots interconnecting into a circle. On the top, gripping the branches stands a snowy owl griffin, wings spread and beak wide as it releases a cry, gaze pointed at a terrified stag tangled between the tree's roots. Splintering, wood-like title text separates the creatures from each other. End id.]

[bayofalgecirascranes]

i am rereading the part of Skin Stealer's Son by @muffinlance where the cat that controls dead things is doing a Danse Macabre against Vivaldi's Winter and i just noticed... Aaron instinctually knew what steps he needed to take to cross the dancing circle???? He felt exactly how he would fit into the murder-dance if he'd had his weapons???? He felt compelled to join the circle of dancing corpses?????

I mean, he resisted the compulsion without even trying, so he's definitely alive. But i don't think the dance would have affected him like that at all if he wasn't at least somewhat dead.

Of course, living folks also don't see Deaths unless those folks are cats, and he's literally a fellow who is still walking around long after his Death was supposed to take him, so.

[art-emisz]

COVER REVEAL for @muffinlance's novel Fox's Tongue and Kirin's Bone!

[therealslimshady]

of all the side characters in the skin stealer's son, the weaponsmith is my absolute favorite. She's all caught up in keeping her people safe after they've been enslaved for generations and then in waltzes the world's shadiest boy, about to wreck havoc across the heldlands and expedite all her plans by several decades

[fireflaked]

look what came in today! i know literally nothing about this story but @muffinlance wrote it so i know i'm going to Feel Things