Little Thieves by Margaret Owen

Vanja Schmidt knows that no gift is freely given, not even a mother's love--and she's on the hook for one hell of a debt. Vanja, the adopted goddaughter of Death and Fortune, was Princess Gisele's dutiful servant up until a year ago. That was when Vanja's otherworldly mothers demanded a terrible price for their care, and Vanja decided to steal her future back... by stealing Gisele's life for herself.

The real Gisele is left a penniless nobody while Vanja uses an enchanted string of pearls to take her place. Now, Vanja leads a lonely but lucrative double life as princess and jewel thief, charming nobility while emptying their coffers to fund her great escape. Then, one heist away from freedom, Vanja crosses the wrong god and is cursed to an untimely end: turning into jewels, stone by stone, for her greed.

Vanja has just two weeks to figure out how to break her curse and make her getaway. And with a feral guardian half-god, Gisele's sinister fiancé, and an overeager junior detective on Vanja's tail, she'll have to pull the biggest grift yet to save her own life.

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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.

Little Thieves publishes on the 5th of October, 2021, in both the US and the UK with the same cover. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.