Thank you so much to NetGalley and Fierce Reads for providing this book as a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Synopsis:
When misfortune strikes, the “reformed” jewel thief Vanja manipulates a remote village for help and in turn, accidentally starts a cult around a Low God, the Scarlet Maiden. Soon after, her nemesis-turned-suitor Emeric and a supervising prefect arrive to investigate the claim of godhood, and she realizes how in over her head she must be. But the Scarlet Maiden does reveal herself . . . only to claim Emeric as her virgin sacrifice. Desperate to save the only man she’s ever cared for, Vanja decides to seek an alternative: bring the Scarlet Maiden a drop of blood from each of seven brothers for the midsummer feast.
While the thief and prefect-in-training still have feelings for one another, Emeric must determine whether Vanja has committed fraud as his final test for prefect-hood. And as they travel the Haarzlands, a harsh land far from the rules of the city, the past that Vanja barely remembers comes into full view and she fears a future that does not require her to keep running.
With vengeful apparitions, supernatural fraud, and ravenous hellhounds, readers will not be able to put down this Bavarian-themed YA fantasy, the thrilling sequel to Little Thieves.
My Review:
Do I even need to say Margaret Owen has done it again? Little Thieves was amazing, and Painted Devils is no different. Owen perfectly executes fantasy comedy romance in the best way possible, and I’ll be following this trilogy to the very end. I adore Vanja and Emeric so much…
On that note, first, characters! There are a LOT, which made it hard to keep track of some, but I still loved it. Our new main or main side characters are Helga, Kirkling, Jakob, Vikram, and more, and they’re all great, but especially Helga. Don’t be fooled, though, we have cameos from a couple iconic Little Thieves side characters. I very clearly don’t have any gripes with Owen in this category. She did an amazing job developing Emeric and Vanja too, and I loved them even more if that’s possible.
Next, relationships and romance! No spoilers, but Vanja definitely had some complex relationships in this one with her romance with Emeric and the other things she has to deal with. Owen continuously surpassed expectations, and I loved seeing Vanja and Emeric’s relationship develop in spite of the pressure they were under. Additionally, Vanja’s own personal journey had a lot to do with other people this time around, and again, the execution was great. In other words, Margaret Owen cannot do wrong with these characters. I was laughing and dying inside the whole time.
Lastly, plot and world-building! There was definitely a lot going on in this book, especially since Little Thieves & Co. are like heist novels where small things get repeatedly stolen but everything is insane and piled up. However, it was actually pretty easy to sit back and enjoy the genius, and most of the time I got exactly what everyone was doing. I did get a twist early on, but it wasn’t really one where I wasn’t SUPPOSED to get it. The ending twist sort of caught me off guard, but I definitely got the reasoning (and I could’ve been talking about either twist there). Some of the world-building was a bit confusing, but just in a “we didn’t get a ton of other magic information in book one so now it’s here” way, not in a bad one.
Overall, I really loved and enjoyed this book. I’ve been looking forward to it since Margaret Owen posted her insane AITA version of the plot summary on Twitter for a trend, and it did not disappoint. I NEED that third Vanja book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
The Fiction Feature 