“Deep in the Kunlun Hills, there lived a mystical deer,” the Nine Color Deer, so called because of the varied colors in her fur. One day she saves a drowning man (by leaping from wave to wave and walking on water), and in return asks only that he not tell anyone where she is.
In this smoothly translated historical-fiction romp set in 1808, lively, propulsive storytelling whirls us through the countryside of what is now Belgium, France, and Germany with Constance, one of Napoleon’s more unusual soldiers. “Stance” has always been acerbic, rebellious, and capable. When her father marries her off to a middle-aged businessman, she sees only one way out: she puts on men’s clothes and joins the army.