Margaret Owen (1) (1986–)
Author of Little Thieves
For other authors named Margaret Owen, see the disambiguation page.
Series
Works by Margaret Owen
The Fallow Year 3 copies
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1986
- Gender
- female
- Agent
- Victoria Marini
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Oregon, USA
- Places of residence
- Seattle, Washington, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
As I said in my review a few seconds ago about [bc:The Merciful Crow|36483378|The Merciful Crow (The Merciful Crow, #1)|Margaret Owen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1541789805l/36483378._SX50_.jpg|58194201], I rarely have the energy these days to sit down and write a review. I wish I could, but sometimes a book comes along so freaking good that it punches you in the face and the heart and your mind and you love it so much that you can't put it down.
I show more purchased The Faithless Hawk last night and began reading it roughly at midnight and I finished this book by 7 AM today. I did not sleep a wink. I devoured page after page. I cried. I mourned. I punched the air in victory (carefully, so I wouldn't wake my spouse), I got up and paced sometimes during the tense moments and then I cried happily when it ended. Because I didn't want it to end. But I was also glad for the ending.
P.S. SPOILER FREE: The cat is fine in this book.
Recommend?
Yes. YES. YES. show less
I show more purchased The Faithless Hawk last night and began reading it roughly at midnight and I finished this book by 7 AM today. I did not sleep a wink. I devoured page after page. I cried. I mourned. I punched the air in victory (carefully, so I wouldn't wake my spouse), I got up and paced sometimes during the tense moments and then I cried happily when it ended. Because I didn't want it to end. But I was also glad for the ending.
P.S. SPOILER FREE: The cat is fine in this book.
Recommend?
Yes. YES. YES. show less
I read Little Thieves last year and absolutely adored it, so it was safe to say that Painted Devils was one of my most anticipated reads this year. Going back to this world to spend time with Vanja and Emeric was everything and I loved every moment!
The author has a way of just fully drawing me in, and I was so engrossed in the story I barely noticed time passing and completely lost myself in the book, something I've found hard to do recently. As with the first one, this book is full of show more humour and heart and it made me tear up several times - both from laughter and how touched I was by certain scenes. I loved that in this book we had the chance to find out more about Vanja's past and her family: seeing her talk about - but also confront - her fears and feelings of abandonment was truly emotional and made me feel all the more connected to her.
The way that the various relationships were developed in this book was fantastic. I particularly appreciated how Vanja and Emeric grew together, and the demisexual rep was a breath of fresh air. Intimacy and sex were approached in an extremely respectful and dignified way, which I found to be really well done, particularly considering this is a YA book that managed to speak so meaningfully to a young-at-heart adult like me.
This book managed to have everything I loved in the first one (heists! gods! curses!) while building on it in new and exciting ways. The worldbuilding and lore are also expanded on and enriched, known characters make a comeback and there are plenty of new ones to get to know. There's also a fair bit of battling social injustice, which is never amiss.
My only negative comment on this book is that after having enjoyed these characters' company for so long, and with that bombshell of an ending, I honestly don't know how I will wait for the next one to come out!
I received an advanced review copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way. show less
The author has a way of just fully drawing me in, and I was so engrossed in the story I barely noticed time passing and completely lost myself in the book, something I've found hard to do recently. As with the first one, this book is full of show more humour and heart and it made me tear up several times - both from laughter and how touched I was by certain scenes. I loved that in this book we had the chance to find out more about Vanja's past and her family: seeing her talk about - but also confront - her fears and feelings of abandonment was truly emotional and made me feel all the more connected to her.
The way that the various relationships were developed in this book was fantastic. I particularly appreciated how Vanja and Emeric grew together, and the demisexual rep was a breath of fresh air. Intimacy and sex were approached in an extremely respectful and dignified way, which I found to be really well done, particularly considering this is a YA book that managed to speak so meaningfully to a young-at-heart adult like me.
This book managed to have everything I loved in the first one (heists! gods! curses!) while building on it in new and exciting ways. The worldbuilding and lore are also expanded on and enriched, known characters make a comeback and there are plenty of new ones to get to know. There's also a fair bit of battling social injustice, which is never amiss.
My only negative comment on this book is that after having enjoyed these characters' company for so long, and with that bombshell of an ending, I honestly don't know how I will wait for the next one to come out!
I received an advanced review copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way. show less
It's quite the dichotomy through this trilogy—the more main character Vanja respects herself and begins to believe she deserves kindness and pleasure, the darker these books get! The body count and the stakes all get seemingly exponentially higher with each novel. It's certainly exciting and hard to put down, but it's a very long way from the original Goose Girl fairy tale retold. I had the same issue with this book as with the previous one, in that I found the motivation and focus of the show more primary antagonist absolutely impossible to comprehend. I think to a big extent though that is the point, that it's not about why some people do terrible, cruel things, but about how the protagonists deal with these situations and with the fact that they too will never really understand why. At its heart this series is a love story, and a wonderful one because you really care about the characters involved, even beyond caring whether they end up together. I really enjoyed the AO3-published short story collection (The Fallow Year) bridging the previous book and this one, which really highlighted both main characters' growth over the intervening period and also had some cool detective stories. show less
{first in duology; fantasy, YA, re-read} (2019)
In a land where every caste has a gods-given birthright only the Crows do not.
In the land of Sabor everyone belongs to a different caste, each named for birds. There are twelve castes in Sabor of which the Phoenix is the highest and the Crows are the lowest, considered almost untouchables. The rulers of Sabor are of the Phoenix caste, whose birthright is fire; they can summon fire from nothing and will not be burned by fire. Every caste except show more the Crows has a birthright of magic, granted by the one thousand dead gods; caste members seem to have limited uses of their magic but caste witches - of which there are one thousand in total across Sabor - can wield the power. The Crow caste, however, has no magic and has no home but the roads; but, though Crows have no innate magic, Crow witches can borrow a birthright from the bones or teeth of other castes.
Crows are tolerated because they, alone, are immune to the Sinners' Plague which kills animals and people horribly and painfully and can literally wipe a village off the face of the earth within a month, so it is their duty - which they cannot refuse if they see the plague beacon - to collect the bodies of plague victims for which they receive a fee, which is how they make their living. If they find victims still alive it is their duty to dispatch them (hence 'merciful Crow') because the plague is incurable and highly contagious. Although the wandering families of Crows are the only thing preventing the land being overrun by the plague Crows are the untouchables of their world, despised and even hunted down for sport.
Sixteen year old Fie is the daughter of a Crow Chief whom she calls Pa (who adopted her after her mother was hunted down) and is being trained by him to be a chief for one of the Crow bands that roam Sabor. She can borrow the magic of a person's caste, for a limited time, from their teeth which Crows collect if a village can afford nothing else for their fee and she can also see past lives from the touch of bones. She knows that, despite Saborian laws, Crows are treated as outcasts and hunted and tortured by the so called Oleander Gentry who ride masked at night and so they must live circumspectly even as they walk the roads of Sabor.
The story opens when Fie's band has been called to the palace to deal mercy to a plague victim, if necessary, for the first time in 500 years. When the queen tries to cheat them of their viatik (or rightful payment) - as so often happens to Crows - Pa lets Fie set the price. And she makes a deal that could make life safer for all Crows - if she can pull it off.
I do like Tavin's irrepressible, flippant humour. He knows how to break the tension; the Crows are running for their lives with Queen Rhusana and the Oleander Gentry (the equivalent of the KKK) after them and they've just realised everything is even worse than they thought.
I like the map at the beginning of the book and I also found the table of castes, with their birthrights, useful.
Very enjoyable. After borrowing this book from the library twice, I've now bought the duology for my own shelves.
(February 2024)
4.5-5 stars show less
In a land where every caste has a gods-given birthright only the Crows do not.
In the land of Sabor everyone belongs to a different caste, each named for birds. There are twelve castes in Sabor of which the Phoenix is the highest and the Crows are the lowest, considered almost untouchables. The rulers of Sabor are of the Phoenix caste, whose birthright is fire; they can summon fire from nothing and will not be burned by fire. Every caste except show more the Crows has a birthright of magic, granted by the one thousand dead gods; caste members seem to have limited uses of their magic but caste witches - of which there are one thousand in total across Sabor - can wield the power. The Crow caste, however, has no magic and has no home but the roads; but, though Crows have no innate magic, Crow witches can borrow a birthright from the bones or teeth of other castes.
"You knew," Fie accused, stacking up every horrid piece. "That's why you ran."(Crows are named for the first word spoken in anger after they are born. Fie has had to make up Crow names for them on the spur of the moment.)
Jasimir shook his head, adamant. "It didn't sound possible until now. All three Swan witches are accounted for, she has no sign, and Tavin and I witnessed the marriage ceremony ourselves. We didn't know she could lose her Birthright for only a moon. I swear, I came to your band for help because Rhusana allied with the Oleanders, and for that reason alone." Fie scowled, baleful, at the dirt. "Aught else you want to tell me? Tatterhelm's got a meaner cousin? The king's really two asps in a fancy robe?"
"I still don't know what Viimo meant about ghasts," Tavin said.
"Me either." Fie's gut twisted. Pa had taught her how to call Swan teeth just on principle, for they had but a largely useless few. Still, in the handful of times she'd blinked through the life in a dead Swan's spark, she'd heard no whisper of ghasts. And that, like so many things, bode ill. Grim silence settled over them once more as Fie plaited a whole new set of troubles into the ones on her head.
Then Tavin's voice broke in. "I really have to know: Which one of us is Pissabed?"
Crows are tolerated because they, alone, are immune to the Sinners' Plague which kills animals and people horribly and painfully and can literally wipe a village off the face of the earth within a month, so it is their duty - which they cannot refuse if they see the plague beacon - to collect the bodies of plague victims for which they receive a fee, which is how they make their living. If they find victims still alive it is their duty to dispatch them (hence 'merciful Crow') because the plague is incurable and highly contagious. Although the wandering families of Crows are the only thing preventing the land being overrun by the plague Crows are the untouchables of their world, despised and even hunted down for sport.
Sixteen year old Fie is the daughter of a Crow Chief whom she calls Pa (who adopted her after her mother was hunted down) and is being trained by him to be a chief for one of the Crow bands that roam Sabor. She can borrow the magic of a person's caste, for a limited time, from their teeth which Crows collect if a village can afford nothing else for their fee and she can also see past lives from the touch of bones. She knows that, despite Saborian laws, Crows are treated as outcasts and hunted and tortured by the so called Oleander Gentry who ride masked at night and so they must live circumspectly even as they walk the roads of Sabor.
The story opens when Fie's band has been called to the palace to deal mercy to a plague victim, if necessary, for the first time in 500 years. When the queen tries to cheat them of their viatik (or rightful payment) - as so often happens to Crows - Pa lets Fie set the price. And she makes a deal that could make life safer for all Crows - if she can pull it off.
I do like Tavin's irrepressible, flippant humour. He knows how to break the tension; the Crows are running for their lives with Queen Rhusana and the Oleander Gentry (the equivalent of the KKK) after them and they've just realised everything is even worse than they thought.
I like the map at the beginning of the book and I also found the table of castes, with their birthrights, useful.
Very enjoyable. After borrowing this book from the library twice, I've now bought the duology for my own shelves.
(February 2024)
4.5-5 stars show less
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- Works
- 7
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- 3,228
- Popularity
- #7,928
- Rating
- 4.2
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- 63
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