Painted Devils

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After the epic tome that was Don Quixote, I felt that I deserved to dive back into some mindless YA fantasy: my guilty pleasure. A few months ago, I discovered that Little Thieves by Margaret Owen was the first book in a trilogy, so I promptly picked up copies of the other two books and reread Little Thieves to reacquaint myself with the world and characters. It’s a joy to be back in the cold, Scandinavian setting with Vanja trying to navigate her way through encounters with nachtmaren, Low Gods, and maleficent spectres.

After leaving Minkja to start a life a little more on the straight and narrow, Vanja stumbles drunkenly to the small village of Hagendorn one night, accidently spilling her rubies into the river as she does. Rather than risk the frostbite of fishing alone, she scams the town into helping her retrieve them, inventing a goddess called the Scarlet Maiden and a promise to bless the town should they find all the rubies. When minor miracles of good fortune start to happen, a cult springs up for the Scarlet Maiden and the lie then spins out of control when Emeric appears to investigate the anomaly and Vanja’s fake goddess manifests and claims him as a sacrifice. Vanja, now accused of profane fraud, finds herself in another dangerous race against time to save Emeric, prove her innocence, and learn the truth of the Scarlet Maiden.

With the characters, setting, and lore established in Little Thieves, Painted Devils focuses on furthering the character and relationship development of the two romantic leads: Vanja and Emeric. Owen’s sassy and modern prose complete with snide asides that are almost metafictive but not quite, is still going strong in this book. Unlike its predecessor, I found this one to be a little bit of a slow starter, a gas stove on the fritz that is click-click-clicking with sparks before (finally) bursting into blue flame.

The central story is no less thrilling than the first one once it gets going. In fact, there actually proves to be a lot more in this one than just ‘break curse and bring evil prince to justice’. The to-do list of quests that make up Painted Devils is impressive: save Emeric, prove Vanja’s innocence, find alternate means to appease goddess, steal a sacred relic, find missing persons, expose a town-wide business scam, solve the mystery of the Scarlet Maiden… it goes on.

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Vanja and Emeric’s relationship definitely develops, still being reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler. One thing that I did find myself hitching on was the introduction of sex. To be fair, sex is kind of integral to the story and the character development of both Vanja and Emeric and there are a couple of amusing scenes in which Owen very succinctly depicts the awkwardness that adolescents encounter when they are required to talk about sex. She also highlights a prominent point in her heroes’ obliviousness about sex and sexuality: sexual education during adolescence is ludicrously poor. It’s astounding that in such a modern age, open discussions about one of the most natural things that humans do productively and recreationally are still considered dirty and taboo. This was the little slice of hidden social commentary that I got out of this; you can always find them in fantasy.

Filled with action, adventure, drama, romance, and sex, Painted Devils is a fun and rollicking follow-up to Little Thieves that ticks all the boxes for a good, comfy, YA fantasy.

Author: Margeret Owen, 2023

Published: Hodderscape, Hodderscape & Stoughton, Hachette, Great Britain, 2023. Paperback edition published 2024.