Body to Jewel: The curse placed on Vanja.

Be Careful What You Wish For: Vanja takes Gisele's place after Gisele asked her to take her place only in the hard parts of being the Margrave's wife.

An Offer You Can't Refuse: Adelbrecht essentially threatens Gisele's parents for her hand in marriage.Gisele was this to a lesser extent, but she wasn't nearly as cruel and only joined in on less serious acts of bullying when pressured to. Alpha Bitch: Erhmgard, a vicious bully.Gisele's mother constantly pushes her to diet and makes comments about her weight.She assumes working for them would be like working for nobles but on a godly scale and refuses to serve either of them. Abusive Parents: Death and Fortune weren't very good godmothers, turning Vanja out into the world after only a brief time raising her, and doing nothing when her caretakers horribly abused her.Doing so will not be easy, as Gisele has been betrothed to a powerful and dangerous warlord, and investigators are hot on the Phantom's heels. When Vanja is close to completing her final caper and getting enough money to escape the kingdom, she runs afoul of a forest goddess who curses her so that her body will slowly transform into a statue made of jewels unless she pays back what she has stolen while in the goddess's lands.

While masquerading as her, she gathered money by secretly stealing from nobles, becoming known as the Penny Phantom. Instead, Vanja stole the princess's enchanted pearls, thus stealing her appearance and identity. Scared, alone, and broken by their mistreatment, the goddesses offer to take her back and protect her for the rest of her days but only if she chooses one of them and offer the chosen goddess a terrible price.

She was adopted and raised by two goddesses, Fortune and Death, who then arranged for her to be the servant to a princess named Gisele and her family. The series follows Vanja Schmidt, a young girl who was abandoned by her mother, who believed her to be bad luck because she's the thirteenth child of a thirteenth child. The first book, Little Thieves was published in 2021. Little Thieves is a Young Adult Fantasy book series by Margaret Owen.

Little thieves margaret owen