This is the story of Vanja and how she goes from orphan to maid to thief. The deceptions she must pull to achieve her goals are many but there are those who seek her. 

She steals the wrong item and is cursed with becoming the jewels she so desires. She will only have a short time to make things right before she becomes jewels forever. Will she make it in time?

She could just give in and choose which Godmother she would like to serve for the rest of her days and be done with this curse but will she when the whole reason for stealing is to get away from them in the first place?

I really enjoyed this story. There were so many things to keep me interested. While there are relationships and a love interest, this book has so much more to offer and wasn’t consumed with the romance aspect.

Check it out if you enjoy magic, gods, and betrayal.

Easily one of the best books I’ve read this year.

I absolutely adored this fantastic reimagining of The Goose Girl. It’s part fairytale and part buddy adventure and boasts an outstanding story, tone, and cast of characters.

Vanja is one of the best protagonists I’ve encountered in quite some time. She’s fascinating and easy to root for, but it’s the complexity of who she is and why she is the way she is where we really see Owen excel. Vanja is that flawed but lovable, multi layered heroine which I always seek but rarely find.

The secondary characters are also outstanding, and the dialogue, which ranges from subtly engaging to sweet to outright hilarious, is among the best I’ve seen in the genre.

At its heart this is an adventure story with a lovely side of the found family trope, and the tone is pitch perfect.

This book made me laugh over and over and also made me want to give it a giant hug. I cannot wait to see where the adventure goes in the next installment of the series.

Oh my gosh, this book is an utter delight! Little Thieves is a Goose Girl retelling, but it’s also a delving into what someone with nothing will do to survive, thrive, and gain something. Vanja is an unlikeable character because her goals are selfish and she’s not afraid to hurt people in the pursuit of her freedom, but in many ways that’s what made this book and Vanja as a main character such a wonderful ride.

Vanja was left with Death and Fortune as a young girl and when she was 13 she was informed she’d have choose whom she’d rather serve, but she doesn’t want to serve either of them because she wants to be their daughter. So she refuses to answer and decides to steal Giselle’s identity as Prinzessin and become the Penny Phantom. She also stole Giselle’s identity because, though they were once friends, when Vanja was hurt Giselle did nothing to stop it from happening. So Vanja wants Giselle to know what it feels like to have nothing.

The relationships and interpersonal dynamics between the characters were so interesting and well done. I loved the slow burn romance between Vanja and Emeric, the Junior Prefect of the Low Gods sent to find the Penny Phantom, and the way trust and respect develops between them. I also loved Vanja and Giselle finding their way back to something like friendship and starting to heal from the wounds they inflicted on each other.

This story was so fascinating with a mystery and magic and so much mayhem. I also loved the way stories were interspersed as a way to show the background. This was such a great book and a fantastic story, and I had so much fun reading Vanja’s story!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. I have to be honest. I only requested this book because of my friend Avhlee over at Tea Cups and Torn Pages. She loves Owen’s books and was fangirling about this one in the group chat for long enough that when I saw it on NetGalley, I had to request it.
I’m so glad that I did because I really, really enjoyed this book. The story follows Vanja, who was given to the Low Gods Death and Fortune when she was just a small child. She was the thirteenth child of the thirteenth child, so her birth mother believed her to be bad luck. Once Vanja got to a certain age, she couldn’t stay with Death and Fortune (titled as godmothers to Vanja) anymore, so they found her a position in a castle where she met more mistreatment. Vanja has led a hard life and because of that she has quite a sizable chip on her shoulder. She steals her mistress’s (Gisele) life while traveling and proceed to steal from the rich people she must be around while playing the role of Gisele. But she crosses the wrong Low God and is cursed for her greed. On top of that, a junior prefect arrives looking for the thief known as the “Red Penny” (who is Vanja).
This is a Goose Girl retelling, but that doesn’t actually mean anything to me because I’m not familiar with the original Goose Girl story. So, I can’t speak to the retelling aspect of the story. But I loved Vanja. She’s been treated poorly her entire life, so who could really blame her for finally taking things into her own hands to secure her future? Certainly not me. But even further, the mystery and magic surrounding the case that Vanja and the junior prefect team up to solve was a fascinating one. Owen did an incredibly job of weaving all the mysteries in the story together. How was Vanja going to break the curse? Who was trying to kill princess Gisele? There were lots of questions and the suspense of finding the answers was really well done. I also just plain liked Vanja. She does whatever she needs to survive. But she’s incredibly clever and resilient.
Without going into too many details because I don’t want to spoil anything, this book really had it all. There was a romance between two women. There was a romance for Vanja. There was a sister-like relationship that was pretty fractured at the start of the story that we got to see slowly mended. There was murder and mystery. There was magic and fascinating world building. I loved the idea of the Low Gods and their magic. I really loved everything about this book. There wasn’t a single moment that I thought, “oh this book would be better if XYZ.” I really loved this book and I highly recommend it.

“If you want me to chase you, I will chase you. If you want me to find you, I will find you. If you’ll have, I will choose you every time.”

A curse. A clever thief. A resilient junior detective. A half god shapeshifting guardian. And all the friends, enemies, and adventures along the way.
This book was SO good. It was absolutely everything I was looking for. It was dark and FUNNY. Like, laugh out loud hilarious. And the story was just absolutely unique. I loved Owen’s take on this fairytale.
Vanja is a clever and sharp tongued thief who was freely handed out to Fortune and Death as a baby. Knowing that she will eventually have to make a decision as to who to spend her life serving, and after living as a maid to a brutal family, Vanja knows that she needs to find a way to save money so that she can run far far away.
When an opportunity to mask herself as the Prinzessin Gisele (the girl who Vanja has been serving all her life) arises, Vanja takes it and runs with it- creating chaos in her wake.
It isn’t until one day she steals from the wrong lower god and gets cursed to turn into gems unless she returns everything that she has stolen- including the real Gisele’s life that Vanja realizes this curse is much more than she bargained for.
Not only that, but she also has a relentless and clever detective on her heels PLUS a power hungry lord who is dying to marry her and the daughter of the lower god who cursed her guarding her (who just so happens to be a shapeshifting sassy sidekick)
Vanja goes on an adventure of forgiveness, self-discovery, and so much love that it was honestly so sweet watching it all unfurl.
I absolutely loved everything about this story and highly recommend it to you all!

I could barely put this book down. I was initially drawn to it because the man characters are queer and it's a retelling of The Goose Girl, but there was a lot that made this story interesting, from the sheer amount of conflict that kept me on the edge of my seat, to how interesting the world of the story was. I thought the world building could have been better developed, but that didn't keep me from seeing the aspects of it that were unique and well thought-out.

This has ended up being one of my top reads of the year. I was a bit belated in reading it because of my life imploding around me, and picking this up ended up being the perfect remedy for everything I was processing.

One of the things I admire most about Little Thieves is how it manages to be both character driven and plot driven at the same time. Things are progressing rapidly in the story but at the same time we get a huge amount of insight to Vanja over the course of the story, gradually allowing us to piece everything together, to understand why she is the way she is when we encounter her. It is hugely admirable how balanced this is as by nature they are normally conflicted styles, yet the author toes the line between the two perfectly, resulting in a near perfect story.

Between the cunning and the swindling, Vanja shines in her determination to be strong and not rely on anyone, having been failed so many times before. She might be living a life – literally – dripping in rubies and pearls now, but has slept on the floor with rats and knows what the other end of the scale can so easily be. Underneath it all, she is just a scared young girl, desperate to be loved, terrified of being alone, worried about what the future will hold for her.

The cast of characters we meet, we become initimately familiar with very quickly, and they all come with their quirks and characteristics that allow the unconvential group to form as a unit. They all bounce off one another in different ways, forming an unexpected team to be working together as a united front that none of them predicted. The twists and turns in the story match their actions as if dancing with them perfectly, and you just lose yourself in the utter wonder of this special book.

Little Thieves is about so many things. It’s about making up for our mistakes. It’s about seeing we can have a future, whatever our past. It’s about taking fate into our hands and reaching difficult decisions. It’s about, ultimiately, the fantastical perials of being human, no matter how much magic might be involved.

Merciful Crow is one of my favorite YA Fantasy reads and so I was excited to get the chance to read and review Little Thieves.

Vanja is living a life not her own. For a year she has been posing as Princess Gisele and a servant while she works her way through thieving from them in order to make her escape from her Godmother’s before her 17th birthday when she’ll finally be deemed independent.

This book was fast-paced and I enjoyed the relationships Vanja built despite trying her best to keep them at a distance. Her end goal is to getaway and if she builds relationships that will only make it more difficult for her. When she’s cursed and only has two weeks to figure out how to break it, she is forced to rely on others to help her see that the choices she made in the past may be catching up to her now.

This book has adventure, friendship, and even a bit of romance. It isn’t as dark as Merciless Crow but it is still a unique story. I would recommend it to other YA fantasy readers because it’s got all the good parts of those kinds of stories. I can’t wait to read more from Margaret Owen in the future!

I can't remember the last time I read a book that I would consider entirely flawless, but Little Thieves is exactly that.
Seriously, I have no notes.

The story is compelling and moves along at a relatively fast clip. Although this book appears lengthy, the story flew by and never dragged once. There was always something new and exciting taking place, so it never felt daunting to continue. I loved all the subtle details of Owen's germanic-inspired world. The descriptions of food and architecture were especially vivid. I love that Owen chose to craft this very traditional feeling world around so much casual queerness. That's such a special thing to find, especially for those of us who never felt represented in the fairy tales of our childhood.

But what really makes this story a great success is the fantastic cast of characters. Every character experiences measurable growth throughout the story - from the sharp antihero who learns to be vulnerable to the demigod who learns what it is to love. Several characters grow in ways that involve overcoming serious trauma or learning coping skills for mental health challenges. Owen tackles these topics head on, managing to balance stark honesty with tact in a really masterful way. Every character in this book is on a journey, some more dire than others, and I treasured getting to be along for that ride.

This book is an absolute treat full of daring heists, wholesome romances, dangerous magic, sneaky schemes, and the most delightfully dysfunctional little found family you've ever seen. I cannot recommend this one highly enough.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan/Henry Holt and Co for an ARC in exchange for review.

This is the story of Vanja, a maid/servant who took matters into her own hands to protect herself when no one else ever had. Shes is the daughter of Death and Fortune. She is a thief. She is a princess. She is an impostor.

This is a retelling of the Goose Girl, which I have not read, but this was a very good book! It has something for everyone. It has political, fantasy, high gods, low gods, romance, humor. I wasn't expecting to laugh, but the characters are very witty! Good one liners and sarcasm.

Vanja has always been alone. Her birth mother gave her to Death and Fortune, who now want her to pick one of them to serve for eternity. The princess, who she thought was her friend, didn't protect her from the king and queen. So, she learned how to protect herself by any means necessary. In doing so, she has built a wall around her heart. In this, we get to see her realize that she does need people on her side and it was great to watch.

Great book. I don't want to give anything else away. Just go read it!

Thank you to Margaret Owen, Henry Holt, and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

BOOK REPORT for Little Thieves (Little Thieves #1) by Margaret Owen

Cover Story: The Fates
BFF Charm: Natalie Imbruglia
Swoonworthy Scale: 8
Talky Talk: The Other Side of the Story
Bonus Factor: Gods and Goddesses
Factor: Series Starter
Relationship Status: Wedding Bells?

Content Warning: Little Thieves contains discussions of child abuse and neglect, abusive environments, and the trauma of a past attempted sexual assault. (Owen herself wrote a more expansive author's note/warning at the start of the novel, but these are the main themes to know about before dive in.)

Cover Story: The Fates
After reading the book, I know that the figures on this cover are all different people/entities. But before reading, I thought that the three in the background might be different parts of the one in the foreground. (In a way, this is sort of correct?) Regardless, I really love how all of the elements combine, from the flowers to the rubies to the gold filigree; everything down to the tiniest detail was thought out and thought through. It's a truly lovely cover.

The Deal:
When Vanja was small, her mother gave her to the gods Fortune and Death because she was convinced that Vanja, as the thirteenth-born, was bad luck. Raised as their goddaughter, Vanja knows more than most about the workings of the world. Especially what it means to be a servant—a lesser citizen. So when she glimpsed a way out, Vanja took it, disguising herself as a princess and pulling a half-Robin Hood to fund her eventual escape.

But Vanja's thievery isn't the only suspect activity happening in the territory of Bóern. And as the proverb goes, "The little thief steals gold, but the great one steals kingdoms; and only one goes to the gallows."

BFF Charm: Natalie Imbruglia
Vanja is a take-no-names, take-no-prisoners, feel-no-feelings kind of badass who's looking out for one person: herself. I like her for those reasons alone, even if I don't feel like those qualities would make her a good friend. But she's also got a heart of—if not gold, a slightly shiny metal—hidden underneath her rough, spiky exterior, which makes me think she actually would be the best kind of friend: someone who's unflinchingly loyal when you've proven yourself deserving. She's also super snarky and surprisingly fragile, which seem like disparate traits but make her feel honest and real.

Swoonworthy Scale: 8
I didn't expect (although I hoped) for the romance that happens in Little Thieves to, well, happen. Vanja's not one to rush into a relationship of any sort, and she's wholly inexperienced in the realm of swoon. But sometimes feelings sneak up on a girl, and when they're slow burn flavored with a large dash of enemistry, you know I'm in.

Talky Talk: The Other Side of the Story
Little Thieves is a retelling/remix of the fairytale "The Goose Girl," except told from the perspective of the "wicked" maid. I'm not familiar with the tale, but I didn't need to be to enjoy this story, as Owen weaves magic, gods, and fantastical elements with strong-willed characters and her trademark irreverent humor to create a story that feels fully her own. And although Little Thieves is something new, Owen doesn't forget the tale's roots and includes seven different fairy tale-esque stories at the start of each section of the novel told from a narrator's perspective—giving them the proper "tale" feel but tying into the story without interruption.

I've enjoyed everything of Owen's I've read so far, and she only seems to get better with each book.

Bonus Factor: Gods and Goddesses
They're tertiary characters, but Fortune, Death, and the other gods that pop up in Little Thieves are delightful versions of the entities most of us think we're familiar with. Owen's imagination is so dang impressive.

Factor: Series Starter
I don't particularly feel like Little Thieves needs a sequel (or multiple), but I am absolutely not going to complain about getting to revisit this universe and hang out with these friends again in the future.

Relationship Status: Wedding Bells?
I knew I liked you from the very start, Book, but I felt myself falling—hard—long before our time together was over. I'm so grateful you're in my life.

Okay, I absolutely loved this book. Firstly, Vanja has got to be one of my favorite main characters of all time. She’s real, she’s flawed, and she’s absolutely hilarious.

Now i’ve never heard the goose girl fairytale so i have no idea how this holds up as a retelling, but i adored this story. The plot held my attention and while the pacing was slow at times, it never failed to pick back up!

The unlikely friendship between Ragne and Vanja was a welcome, wholesome aspect to the story. Also, Emeric might be the sweetest book boyfriend ever.

The (german?) terminology tripped me up a bit throughout the book but other than that, the world building was great.

Overall this was a magical retelling with great writing and amazing characters.

I loved the premise and atmosphere of Little Thieves. Despite the characters often slipping into more modern speech patterns, the setting was consistently dark and woodsy, properly reminiscent of the Eastern European setting of the original “The Goose Girl”. In Little Thieves, Vanja is the main character but also the antagonist—a trend across YA fantasy that I don’t mind one bit. She frequently ruminates on her neglected past and how, as a result, she has had to cycle through various identities to survive before eventually slipping into the role of princess. At times, these reminders felt a bit forced, though I found Vanja to be a compelling character with biting yet sympathetic narration throughout.

After the excitement of meeting the main cast receded, the plot felt simpler than I’d expected. There were various smaller plot threads, but a lot of them didn’t stray very far from the main plotline, so they didn’t feel very cumulative. I was especially hungry to read more about Vanja’s relationship with her godmothers, Death and Fortune. I understand that Vanja’s stubbornness prevented the godmothers from playing a larger role in the majority of the story, but I kept hoping they would show up and carry more weight toward the end. While they did play a role, their reconciliation with Vanja could have been more complex.

Still, this was a refreshing retelling with loveable characters and a pleasantly dark atmosphere! And don’t let the length intimidate you—this novel felt like it flew by in a solid 300 pages, not 500.

“I think there are lives that make it easy to be good. Or what most people call good. When you have wealth, status, family, it’s easy to be a saint, it costs you nothing. I can’t say if you’re a good person or not. But the more I know of you, the more I understand that the world keeps making you choose between survival and martyrdom. No one should fault you for wanting to live.”

I will definitely be reading more of Margaret Owen.

Little Thieves is loosely based on the fairy tale, The Goose Girl but takes a very different approach to the characters that I found unique and refreshing. The characters are the shining triumph of this story, especially chaotic neutral Vanja, our sharp-edged protagonist with a heart of gold ruby.

Vanja is the thirteenth child of the thirteenth child, and her mother leaves her with goddesses Death and Fortune, fearing that she is unlucky. Being abandoned by her mother and raised by two inhuman beings does a number on Vanja, and after spending her adolescence being abused as a servant to a noble family, she turns to a life of crime which backfires spectacularly. Cursed to turn into rubies and pearls by the next full moon, she has to make amends but her poor amoral heart doesn’t even know where to start.

I loved Vanja’s wit and commitment to snark above self preservation. She truly cannot help herself, and the story is the better for it. Her scars were treated appropriately and gave a believable depth to her actions and insecurities. I wasn’t surprised, considering that the book started off with the most beautifully crafted Author’s Note I have ever seen:

This is a story about many things, beautiful and ugly, painful and true. There are discussions of child abuse and neglect, navigating abusive environments, and trauma from a past attempted assault. For many of us, these are wounds, and I have tried hard to give them air here without tearing at the hard-won stitches. Still, I trust you to know your scars.

Some of the other characters didn’t come into focus quite as well as Vanja, but I appreciated the development of Gisele over time. I wish the narrative had been tighter and less angsty for the middle bit. It dragged around the 50-75% with some of the entanglements and political backstory. Overall, still a very interesting take on an old tale.

4 stars.

Thank you, Macmillan Publishing for the advance review copy via NetGalley! Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Thank you to NetGalley for this arc. I love this book. The twist and turns , the main character is ruthless in my eyes.I love her!!! I recommended this book already to my friends. This story is adventurous and kept my intrigued. I couldn’t put it down.

I adore a fairytale retelling and this one is fantastic. Owen builds a great atmosphere in this page turning retelling of The Goose Girl (a story, I must admit, I was not familiar with). Fans of A Spindle Splintered, Uprooted, and Spinning Silver will particularly enjoy this one.

The cover! The synopsis! The Goose Girl! The lush, original, captivating fairy tale retelling! Margaret Owen, as always, blew me away. This book was maybe designed for me specifically, and I'm so grateful to have had the chance to review it. All praise, no complaints.

Thank you to Henry Holt & Company for the ARC of this book!

Little Thieves is a fairytale retelling of The Goose Girl, only turned upside down and reimagined into something richer and deeper.

Vanja is a horrible girl, and this is the story of exactly how horrible she can be. She was a maidservant to a princess, and after taking the life the princess knows and tossing her to the cold, Vanja lives a sweet life of thievery and comfort. This all comes to a halt, however, when she steals the wrong thing and she becomes cursed by an old god. Vanja herself is the daughter of Fortune and Death but is determined not to call for their help, refusing to be bound to serve one of them. To break the curse, Vanja has to restore what is taken, but greed is not so easily cured.

I really loved the Merciful Crow series, so I was super excited for this book! In true Margaret Owen fashion, this book delivers beautiful world-building, as well as first-class banter between characters. The characters themselves are easy to like. Vanja is horrible. She's selfish and greedy. Giselle, the rightful princess, was horrible to her without even trying. Emeric, the upstart junior prefect, is single-minded and pretentious. But the really wonderful thing is that as the character growth happens, we get to see the why's of all of this. We get just a bit of everyone's past and present to make it make sense and to make it that much more satisfying when we see them bloom.

The story itself is well done with German influence and gorgeous imagery. It's a long book, but it doesn't feel like a long book. The pacing is such that the story keeps moving, different storylines weaving in and out of each other with ease.

I did feel like I wanted a little more something from the story. The end seemed a bit abrupt and wrapped up quickly when I was expecting more. That said, it was a really fantastic retelling!

Hands down 5 stars. I loved this book! This is my favorite book of the year and my favorite fantasy in a long time! It was SO GOOD.
First I want to talk about the characters. These characters gave me life. The main character Vanja was my favorite. There are so many places I highlighted just to make the note "lol" because it literally made me laugh out loud so many times. Vanja is independent. She doesn't think there is any possible way anyone could ever care for her. I immediately loved her. She was so incredibly sarcastic and witty and absolutely hilarious. My other favorite character was Ragne. She is the daughter of a lower God (Eiswald) and is given the job of watching over Vanja after Eiswald puts a curse on Vanja for being selfish. So she is basically learning to be a human (but can also shapeshift into animals) and it's hilarious. The other characters were amazing also. I loved Gisele, Jonzia, Emeric, they were all so fantastic.
The plot was also so engaging. We start out with Vanja having stolen the appearance altering peral necklace of her former employer (she was her maid) and basically stealing her life. She is about to get married to a complete monster, so is stealing money from rich people to run away. Everything comes crashing down when she get the curse put on her that slowy is turning her into jewels and when a Junior Prefect Emeric comes into town to investigate the thefts, AND Vanja/Gisele's betrothed comes home from war early. So many things happen that even when the pace slowed down, I didn't want to stop reading. The ending was absolutely amazing. We are following a path we think will work out and all of the sudden are hit with a plot twist and how it all ends up working out, I just loved it.
I absolutely loved the writing style. As I said before I highlighted so many parts just to write "lol." I think it's great that there is such a perfect mix of fantasy and humor which I feel like is kind of rare in fantasy books.
I'm hoping and praying that there is at least one more book in this series since there is a #1 by the title because I want more of these characters!

“Once upon a time, on the coldest night of midwinter, in the darkest heart of the forest, Death and Fortune came to a crossroads.”

Have you ever heard the Goose Girl Tale? Little Thieves is a beautifully atmospheric reimagining of this not-so-known German tale. Vanja is the antihero orphaned as a child to the lower gods, Death and Fortune. She’s also the wicked girl who steals the identity of Princess Gisele with the help of an enchanted necklace. In the past year she has come to know a life of luxury and thievery, taking from the rich and noble she meets in her secondary guise. I’ll let you find out what that is though. Her thieving misdeeds end up going too far and she takes from too many of the wrong individuals. As her enemy’s mount, enchanted deadlines approach and a curse slowly turns her to a statue of precious gems, we get to experience Owen expertly craft a web of plot lines and back story. When I say there is a lot going on, there is a LOT going on. Don’t worry though; the flow is well-crafted. I personally would have preferred a faster paced read but the way the story is laid out makes it easy to see why things unfold the way they do. So I can’t complain too much.

I do not have enough adjectives to describe how much I enjoyed the cast of characters in this book. The growth was spectacular. There is something to be said about characters you know you should probably dislike but end up highly loving by the end. As I mentioned above, there are a lot of moving parts existing in this one and that applies to the characters as well. Owen not only brings you character background that molds the persona of their current day devilishness, but she molds their character growth step by step. By the end you realize your initial feelings are probably no longer valid. I loved it.

So I don’t write a novel myself, I’ll quickly mention that the world building, lore and magic were wonderful. This is a tale that has not been done ad nauseam. The original has the deliciously dark ending many of us love from the Grimm Tales. Owen embraces that atmosphere and creeps it into the pages perfectly. Obviously, you can tell that I adored this novel. It is a lengthy read and like I mentioned, some areas may be longer than some may like. The ending was a bit abrupt for my liking with the buildup so exquisitely put together. Even with the slow pace and ending I found myself drawn and unable to put it down for the majority of my read. Next, I plan to hunt down the audio. It has to be just as wonderful.

Thank you, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, Bookishfirst and Fierce Reads for the gifted digital copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own. True rating 4.5/5.