Painted Devils
core novel 2023 Little Thieves
Record
| First published | 2023 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.17 (9,575 ratings, collected 2026-08-27) |
| Page count | 512 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781250831163 |
| Internal chronology | 2 |
Synopsis
Painted Devils continues the Little Thieves trilogy after Vanja has broken her curse and helped bring down a corrupt margrave. Trying to leave her criminal past behind, she searches for the birth family she has never known, while attempting to build some kind of honest life for herself. When an old scheme goes wrong, Vanja invents a fictional deity, the Scarlet Maiden, to talk her way out of trouble, only for the invented goddess to seemingly take on a life of her own and claim Emeric Conrad, the prefect and former love interest investigating her, as an intended sacrifice. As Emeric works to determine whether Vanja has committed fraud or stumbled onto something genuinely supernatural, the two are drawn back into each other's orbit amid a mystery neither of them expected.
Where it sits
- Universe: Little Thieves
- Series: The Little Thieves Trilogy core; position 2 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Margaret Owen
Notes
- From the series record (The Little Thieves Trilogy): A Grimm's "The Goose Girl" retelling told from the antagonist's point of view; Vanja Schmidt, raised by the gods Death and Fortune, impersonates a princess while moonlighting as a jewel thief. Holy Terrors (2025) concludes the trilogy.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series The Little Thieves Trilogy: position 2 of 3: previous Little Thieves (2021) · next Holy Terrors (2025)
Sources
- Rating-platform listing: Little Thieves series
- Reactor review: Holy Terrors
- https://www.pastemagazine.com/books/margaret-owen/painted-devils-interview-little-thieves-trilogy
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