Little Thieves by Margaret Owens

Release date: October 5th

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Owens has somehow taken everything I love and woven it all together beautifully into a single, self-contained book. A thief, dark magic, gods, curses, terrifying creatures and clever little plans.

Some people steal gold. Others steal gems. But Vanja Schmidt has stolen a life…and some gold and gems too because what sort of thief would she be if she didn’t. The bed she sleeps in is not her own, the clothes she wears are made for another, and now, thanks to a curse by a petty but vexed god, she has but two weeks to find a way to atone. But to make matters worse the method of atonement is painfully unclear and a prefect has arrived to catch the thief plaguing the wealthy homes of the area.

Honestly this book flows so nicely I blew through it at record speed. The characters are so lovable you can’t help but root for them and ignore how dark it is outside, “just one more chapter I swear”. This is easily a 4.5 star book that, given Goodreads lack of half stars I am happy to give 5 stars.

This is my first introduction to Margaret Owen, so I had no idea what I was in for. To my surprise, I was entertained by how engaging Owen's prose is. She built a rich, fantasy world with characters who are too endearing for their sarcasm and wit. However, in terms of storytelling, Owens has hits and misses. There are moments from the book that dragged, but there were some that picked up as events started to turn intriguing. Nevertheless, the book didn't lose it's fantastical essence, filled with adventures, lore, and gods.

I love a good fairy tale retelling, and the one that showed me how great they can be was The Goose Girl. Like every other one I've read, though, that one was from the point of view of the wronged princess. I've never read a version from the point of view of the maid before. I was very excited to try this one and see how her behaviour could be justified. After all, we all know the maid was shiftless and ungrateful, don't we?

This started out ok. It's one of my least favourite types of novel ... 'Plunged in and left to figure things out', especially with the random German and references to High and Low Gods. But even though Greta is unlikable, I really enjoyed her scene with the Forest God and how much she just didn't care for the theatrics. I guess growing up under the protection of two gods will do that for a person.

I'll be honest with you. Around about a third of the way in, I came very close to giving up. It was too complicated; too slow; too many plots. Lots of Things were happening, but the plot didn't feel like it was going anywhere, and I was having trouble keeping everyone straight in my head.

But I hung in there, because the story was intriguing. I'm really glad I did. Shortly after that things picked up steam again, things were making sense, we were getting places. It never really slowed down again after that and I was reading as quickly as I physically could, trying to see what was going to happen next, and next, and next.

Greta stays mostly unlikable for most of the novel, but she's just built that way, and by the end when her many stresses have eased a bit she is...not completely likable, but more likable. It makes her interesting. I loved Ragne...I defy anyone not to! I'd read loads more about her!...and the rest of the supporting cast were all good, too. (Love Holdi!)

Overall; this can take a while to get into, and it needs attention paid to it, but it's a great read, definitely worth it. If you're into fairy tales at all, give it a try.

I have been finding myself 'falling out of love' with YA of late, just feeling like nothing was gripping me like it used to. Was this the end? Was I finally 'growing out' of a 'genre' that I have always said anyone could read? Enter 'Little Thieves' to remind me that YA is still a great time. I will be forever grateful.

This book hits on a lot of my favourite topics: death, elaborate schemes and figuring out who you are and what you want. Yes to all of the above (particularly the death part). I *hugely* enjoyed the set up for this story, the idea of the goddaughter of both death and fortune deciding she wants to try and forge her own path is just exactly what I needed.

Vanja is a great main character, I love her wit and her sharpness but I also liked that she's totally willing to learn and grow. I thought that the way that this book tackles the idea of forgiveness as well as processing one's past was very mature and a great example to show to those reading this book. There were a lot of moments where this story could have taken the easy way out, writing off one character as a villain and that's that, but life is more nuanced than that and this book took the time to tease out more of those relationships.

I appreciated the casual queerness of this book, we have a character who uses they/them pronouns (albeit not a main character they are there) as well as some WLW representation. I wasn't expecting to see it, not for any particular reason other than the main romance was het, so it was a delightful surprise to have that included. I believe this is a standalone but if there did happen to be other books in this series or set in this same world I would love to see some of that explored a little more?

Overall I thought this book was just a great read, the story is fast-paced the characters are lovely and there is more than one 'so here's how the plan is going down' moment which is EXACTLY what I want from a book about a thief.

Yes. Yes to this.

I received a free digital advanced review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

Aw I do love a good retelling, and this version of the classic goose girl did well.
A great main character who is likable and funny, a cool and intense heist, romance, friends and found family. There wasn't much to not like about this tale
Only downside is its a bit long and drags in a couple of spots

A fantastically rich fantasy world with characters that vibrate off the page with their sarcasm, Little Thieves is a thrilling adventure overflowing with gold, gods and folklore.

I can't remember the last time I had so much fun reading a book!

Vanja, the main protagonist, is smart, cunning and hilarious. She knows what she wants and she's not afraid to get it no matter the cost. Definitely, not your perfect type of heroine that can do no wrong - Vanja is a fresh of breath air from many of the current YA fantasy stories.

The book is written in an interesting an entertaining way, mixing fairy tales and Vanjas POV to finally give us the complete story. There's a lot of twists and turns that make you keep on reading and even though the beginning is a little hard to get into (lots of details put in the first few pages), by the third chapter I couldn't put the book down. The folklore of the story is one that I haven't read before, making this even more entertaining for me - I liked the idea of Low Gods intervening in everyday people's lives and acting as jury when needed.

It's my first introduction to Margaret Owen but if all her other books are this witty, engaging and funny, then I'm a serious fan. Cannot recommend this enough - you will enjoy it from start to finish!

I have heard of this author's previous work The Merciful Crow series. While I have not read those books, I had a fairly high exception going in and I am so glad Little Thieves did not disappoint! This book had everything I want, the plot, characters and romance (albeit little, still enough to keep me on my toes)

DISCLAIMER : I received an ARC of this book from NetGAalley in exchange for an honest review.

Any quotes figuring in this review are taken from the ARC and may be subjected to some change in the final published copy.

*Once upon a time, on the coldest night of midwinter, in the darkest heart of the forest, death and fortune came to a crossroads” - Little Thieves, Margaret Owen.

Synopsis :

Little Thieves follows Vanja Schmidt, a 16 years old girl who was raised by the lower gods Death and Fortune. Until a year ago. When her godmothers demanded she pay the price of their raising her. Now, she only has a week left to either pay the price or choose which of her godmothers to serve for the rest of her life. Vanja has a cunning plan in motion, though : impersonate Princess Gisele and rob the nobility blind. But, soon, Vanja is forced to reckon with her wild ways when she gets cursed by the Lady of the Forest to become her greed if she doesn’t return what she took. And, the odds are not on her side.



Review :

So, this is the first ARC that I ever got and I feel very happy with that.

I haven’t read any of Owen’s books before, although I’ve heard incredible things about The Merciful Crow. Still, when I started this book, I didn’t expect to like it.

The beginning got me intrigued enough to continue, but I could tell the writing style was not for me and it took me quite a lot of time to get used to it. But, the story definitely made up for everything else.

Vanja is one of those villainous morally grey characters that you can’t help but root for. Apart from being hilarious and sarcastic (both some of my favorite character attributes ever), she is ressourceful and as quick witted as thet get. I loved how she is selfish and totally unapologetic about it. She just wants to live live to the fullest, free of the pains that were forced upon her, and doesn’t hesistate to eliminate any threaths that stand in her way to acheiving that. I loved how deep her character is. Owen gave us a glimpse into Vanja’s complicated feelings : Her overwhelming pain, her desire to prove herself, and her absolute conviction that she doesn’t need anyone to validate her or solve her problems for her. And not only that, she took us on Vanja’s healing journey where she discovers that loving someone and being friends with someone does not mean giving up your independance and freedom.

Vanja was not the only character that got a deeper depth to them. Owen writes her secondary characters just as well as her main one. Every character got their own time to shine, and that was deeply appreciated.

The little sprinkle of hate lo love romance was the cherry on top. I like my romance in books to be slow moving and that was what I got delivered. I adored every single moment between our two characters and enjoyed every moment of awkwardness (Emeric lol) and adorable sweetness between the two.

And the writing. The writing, man. I’m not big on writing , and I usually don’t spare a second glance to it. I read for the plot and the characters and the fun, you know. But, I found myself re reading some lines because I thought they were just *chefs kiss*. Overall, I’m not one for lyrical writing, which Owen’s totally is (so, if you like lyrical writing do read this book), but I still found this bearable and enjoyable at times.

Overall, I liked this book, a LOT if you couldn’t already tell. And, I can’t believe I was planning on DNFing it at first. The first 50 pages or so were boring for me, and I was barelly dragging my feet through it, but as soon as it started to pick up, I was there for the ride and it was a very enjoyable one.

So, do I recommend this ? Yes, totally. Read this, if you can. It's so good.

4.5/5 ⭐
I loved Vanja's scheming mind, Emeric's cleverness and how Vanja flusters him, Ragne's friendship and low Gods. But with all those pluses, the ending was quick and unsatisfying.
Though this was a loose retelling of 'The Goose Girl', the story has so many individual aspects that makes it unique and distinct.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for providing me with an eARC of Little Thieves in exchange for an honest review.

Little Thieves is loosely based on the lesser-known fairy-tale of The Goose Girl, told from the perspective of the maid. The novel is the story of a heist, and from the outset we know that we are reading the story of how the little thief, Vanja Schmidt, gets caught after having stolen the identity of Prinzessin Gisèle.

Vanja is an intriguing main character: she makes morally grey choices and mistakes, but she is likeable and has a back story that accounts for her flaws. I was drawn in by how she gets trapped in the web of lies she has spun and rooting for her to break the curse and come out on top despite the odds.

The cast also includes junior prefect Emeric, who takes on the case of the Pfennigeist robbing the local aristocracy and is pitted against Vanja, the real Gisèle and Ragne. Romance is not the main plot line, but if you like the enemies to lovers trope, you’ll find this very swoon-worthy. The novel also has good representation, with gay and sapphic relationships among supporting characters, as well as non-binary representation.

As a native speaker of German, one thing that initially bothered me was the ortography and inflections of some of the German words; while a number were lifted straight from modern German, others were derived from German words, but using incorrect inflections. It took me a while to get caught up in the story sufficiently to ignore any endings that sounded wrong to my ear.
Overall, though, I really enjoyed Little Thieves and have pre-ordered a copy of the book.

Sadly I didn’t finish this book, Little Thieves touched subject’s that made me uncomfortable. This might be because of my age, but I’m sure that someone who is older than me might like it more than me. It wasn’t for me, sorry :((

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for giving me an e-ARC of Little Thieves. Sorry I couldn’t do a proper review!

I'm so frustrated with this ARC, I truly want to love it, but I can't get past the terrible formatiing, it's messing with my reading experience. I wonder if I'm the only one experiencing it, but reading this on my trusty old kindle keyboard, the breaks between words, new lines started between words and the multitude of -1 and -0 scattered in and I do actually mean within a word is making me want to pull my hair out.

So I'd looooove to read this book and read it properly but the ARC is too messed up for me to settle into the story, which is such a dreadful shame, I can see me absolutely loving the book!

If the publishers read this, is there any chance of an ARC that isn't what looks like a PDF squished into a mobi format?

I am so very sorry I'm unable to properly give a review on the book because of this.

There is no other way to start this review other than by saying that I LOVED this book. I can honestly say it's is my favourite of the year so far. This review will be long and ranty but its out of pure love.

I have never read a book by Margaret Owen before but I am aware of The Merciful Crow series and its been on my list to read for a while. I can guarantee I will be reading them very soon.

Recently I've been struggling a bit with YA fantasy because it's all felt a bit samey but I don't think I've read anything like this before. I adore that we follow a villain character and with it being a YA you know where that characters journey is going but its done impeccably in my opinion and isn't exactly what you'd expect.

The writing. Incredible. Unbeatable. I could read a million stories like this. I love the way it feels like a conversation and Vanja talks to herself in her head, as in what she says out loud isn't necessarily what she's thinking, but rather than hint she doesn't agree she has these snarky, witty and darn right hilarious comments. I feel like Vanja is me, I have never related to a character so much. Like I mentioned, YA can be a bit predictable but nothing about this felt cringy predicable if that makes sense. Everything felt real and kept with the dark gritty feel of the book. The moments of relief were timed perfectly after tense chases and fights which completely pulled me in. This is a book that I repeatedly found myself saying "Just one more chapter" and ended up reading way more than one.

My love for Vanja knows no bounds. She is funny, witty, sarcastic, rude and complicated. She NEVER wavers in who she is despite changing which sounds like an oxymoron but I swear it makes sense. People can adapt and change without sacrificing who they are and I don't think I've seen that, usually a character sacrifices something about themselves and Vanja never feels the need to.
Emeric is a cutie pie.
Ragne Is the best friend I want, also a shape shifter so bonus points.
Gisele is not what I expected and breaks every stereotype I had going in.
Death and Fortune are hilarious and exactly how I imagine gods like that should be.

The magic system in this was so vivid and creepy that I genuinely had to put the book down at one point because I felt uncomfortable. It was like a movie in my head. I don't think I would ever get bored of reading about the evil creatures in this, it was new to me and so so interesting.

This book has such a brilliant like old fashioned mystery feel with the quirky narrator who seems to interrupt and takes you back to see how it really happened. I would love this more in books rather than just a lengthy explanation about what happened, I could hear the record scratch and it made me laugh out loud. I never fully knew where this was going, I had assumptions and predictions and found myself surprised multiple times and don't think I was ever disappointed at a reveal.

I wasn't expecting as much representation in this book as there was and I'm so glad for it. There are characters who are gay and non binary/ genderfluid and what I read as asexual rep too. I mean it in a good way when I say its basically not even commented on, its like "oh you like girls? cool." or "how would you like to be referred to today? They? Fab, moving on." No big explanation about how this impacts everyone in the world or how much of a huge scandal it is. The asexual rep is potentially on the Demi side, I don't know if I'm reading into it but (minor spoiler alert) two characters are hiding and to avoid being caught one suggests pretending to be kissing and there's a conversation about how that isn't something the other character does, that they don't feel comfortable doing it with just anyone despite the fact it might save their life! Regardless it felt really important to me as someone who is demi and I rarely get that feeling, so that was nice.

I don't think I have a bad thing to say about this and I will 100% be buying myself a copy when it comes out and recommending it to anyone and everyone. Great for those who like a darker fantasy and a bit of fourth wall breaking.

5/5 Stars!!!

It took me a little while to get into this. There were parts that I loved and the pace was excellent, and then it would suddenly get slow and drag. However, the last part of it I really liked. I really connected with Vanja is some ways, and thought the way she was portrayed was excellent. I loved Ragne, and the light relief and innocence she brought at times.

Where to begin with this book? I went in expecting a fun fantasy heist romp with a horrible goose girl. I got- well, that, but a lot more besides. Little Thieves is, in my opinion, something of a style successor to Gideon the Ninth- there's definitely clear influence here (though the use of memes is not *quite* as overt) and, like the Locked Tomb trilogy, the memes and butt jokes are a sort of clever distraction from the fact that this book is very heartfelt, very human, and very, very good.

Vanja is a fantastic protagonist and has rocketed, along with Emeric and Ragne, into my 'favourite characters' list. She's snarky without being annoying, selfish and flawed without being unlikeable. Her backstory allows for a continuation of the conversation Owen started in The Merciful Crow dulogy, about power, class, and justice, taking it forward with the events of the book to show just how things work out if you're a bit more ordinary than Fie happened to be (though the divine godmothers balance things a bit).

It's hard to discuss specific things I loved without going into spoiler territory, so let me say- I really enjoyed the romance (and I don't think I've ever seen demisexuiality depicted like this before, and it made me very happy). I loved the world building, and I'd read about the chase between Emeric and Vanja forever.

Truly, much more than I bargained for, in the best way possible.

Ohhhh this book, you better be pre-ordering and read it before they someone else tells you about it. Margaret is back after her great series “The Merciful Crow “ (highly recommended as well) . The little thieves is a completely new and different story. Gets your attention from the beginning, A fairy tale with good and evil, with a beautiful writing and a strong female character. Can’t wait to recommend it to my costumers! Thanks for the Arc and my best wishes to the author. This was a 5/5, one of my favorite reads this year

To say I was blown away by this book is an understatement. This book rocketed up to 5* in the first few chapters. This story follows Vanja, a personal maid to Princess Gisele. However, Vanja steals Gisele's enchanted pearls and therefore steals her identity. Vanja is also a little thief trying to make enough money to escape her land and get away from her guardians: Death and Fortune. There is also a bit of a witch hunt from the real Gisele trying to get her identity back. This book had many twists and turns that I was not expecting and that I did not see coming in any way shape or form. The characters were incredible, Ragne and Emeric being my favourite. There is a mystery element to this story which I enjoyed. I love the Poldi that guards the castle and the way they are developed in the story. There are so many layers to this story, it is intricately written and is exciting to read. GO VANJA!

Set in a fictional version of Germany, we follow the story of Vanja. Given up as a small child to the Low Gods Death and Fortune who raise her as their own. Vanja is desperately trying to get enough money together so that she can get away from a life she is being forced into, even if that means stealing, impersonating a princess and the occasional bad deed. But she only gives back what the world has done to her.

We learn how Vanja has been betrayed, hurt emotionally and physically and how she has learnt that she can only trust herself to look out for her.

So, let me say this: I loved this book. It’s a YA fantasy that does not shy away from adult themes without being graphic. The characters are well written and each side character adds well to the story. With demisexual and sapphic love interests that are not seen as a plot point it was very refreshing.

The main character was (worryingly) someone I could relate too, obviously not exactly the same because I have not had the same life experiences but I understand the untrusting feeling Vanja has and questioning of people’s motives. Emeric made me laugh and I appreciated that he wasn’t just there for her storyline but had his own. And the bluntness of Ragne gave me warm fuzzies inside!

If you are looking for a well paced, heist style fantasy with added sass and characters that show development through the book then this is a great one to pick up!

Thank you Netgalley (@netgalley )and Hodder & Stoughton (@hodderbooks ) for the chance to read this book before publication!

The cover of this book led me to imagine it was a kind of dark fantasy-fairytale story, and there are elements of folklore in the style, and yet the plot is pure heist, which I loved. Vanya is the thirteenth daughter of the thirteenth daughter—abandoned by her own mother to be brought up by the low gods, Death and Fortune. When we meet Vanya, she is a notorious jewel-thief, impersonating a princess, in order to rob and humiliate the wealthy and earn her own freedom from her two overbearing godmothers. But when she is cursed by another god, she has two weeks to make amends to her former mistress whose life she stole, before she is turned into precious stones.

The twists and turns of Vanya’s story are breathtakingly exciting, filled with literal and authorial sleight-of-hand. The insights into her character, gleaned from storytelling flashbacks, add emotional depth and heart to the story. She is a brilliant, wisecracking, stubbornly independent heroine and her road to redemption is a joy to read—I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this book. ‘Little Thieves’ works perfectly as standalone novel, but I do hope this is not the last we hear of Vanya.