Genre: YA Fantasy
Pages: 512
Published: 2021
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Publisher’s Synopsis:
“Once upon a time, there was a horrible girl…
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.
Margaret Owen, author of The Merciful Crow series, crafts a delightfully irreverent retelling of “The Goose Girl” about stolen lives, thorny truths, and the wicked girls at the heart of both.”
My Review:
I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. I loved the previous author’s The Merciful Crow series but this one fell a bit flat. It wasn’t bad by any means but it felt really slow. I didn’t love the characters as much as I wanted to. The pacing of events drug enough in places that I stopped reading for a time. It didn’t hold my interest, which was both surprising and disappointing because of how much I loved her other work. I know many people really loved this story so I may be in the minority here. I just wasn’t as captivated by the story world either. Her previous books had such intricate lore and a unique magic system that I was completely immersed in. Maybe it’s a little unfair to compare the two series as they each have totally different intentions. But I’m only being honest in my opinions of my own experience with the story. Again, it wasn’t bad but it also wasn’t amazing for me.
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