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    The Thief
    The Thief
    The Thief
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Thief

    Written by Megan Whalen Turner

    Narrated by Steve West

    4/5

    ()

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    About this audiobook

    Discover and rediscover the world of the Queen's Thief, from the acclaimed novel The Thief to the thrilling, twenty-years-in-the-making conclusion, The Return of the Thief. The epic novels set in the world of the Queen’s Thief can be read in any order.

    New York Times-bestselling author Megan Whalen Turner’s entrancing and award-winning Queen’s Thief novels bring to life the world of the epics. This first book in series introduces one of the most charismatic and incorrigible characters of fiction, Eugenides the thief. The Queen’s Thief novels are rich with political machinations and intrigue, battles lost and won, dangerous journeys, divine intervention, power, passion, revenge, and deception. Perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo, Marie Lu, Patrick Rothfuss, and George R. R. Martin.

    Eugenides, the queen’s thief, can steal anything—or so he says. When his boasting lands him in prison and the king’s magus invites him on a quest to steal a legendary object, he’s in no position to refuse. The magus thinks he has the right tool for the job, but Gen has plans of his own. The Queen’s Thief novels have been praised by writers, critics, reviewers, and fans, and have been honored with glowing reviews, “best of” citations, and numerous awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Newbery Honor, the Andre Norton Award shortlist, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award. 

    A Newbery Honor Book

    An ALA Notable Book

    A YALSA Best Book for Young Adults
    A Horn Book Fanfare Book
    A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age
    A Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Blue Ribbon Book
    A Junior Library Guild Selection

    “The Queen’s Thief books awe and inspire me. They have the feel of a secret, discovered history of real but forgotten lands. The plot-craft is peerless, the revelations stunning, and the characters flawed, cunning, heartbreaking, exceptional. Megan Whalen Turner’s books have a permanent spot on my favorites shelf, with space waiting for more books to come.”—Laini Taylor, New York Times-bestselling author of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone novels and Strange the Dreamer

    ""Unforgettable characters, plot twists that will make your head spin, a world rendered in elegant detail—you will fall in love with every page of these stories. Megan Whalen Turner writes vivid, immersive, heartbreaking fantasy that will leave you desperate to return to Attolia again and again.”—Leigh Bardugo, New York Times-bestselling author of the The Grisha Trilogy and Six of Crows

    “Trust me. Just read it. Then read it again, because it will not be the same river twice.”—Lois McMaster Bujold, acclaimed and Hugo Award-winning author of the Vorkosigan Saga, the Chalion Series, and the Sharing Knife series

    ""In addition to its charismatic hero, this story possesses one of the most valuable treasures of all—a twinkling jewel of a surprise ending."" —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

    “To miss this thief’s story would be a crime.”—Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)

    “A literary journey that enriches both its characters and readers before it is over.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

    “A tantalizing, suspenseful, exceptionally clever novel.”—The Horn Book (starred review)

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 16, 2017
    ISBN9780062693815
    Author

    Megan Whalen Turner

    Megan Whalen Turner is the New York Times–bestselling and award-winning author of five stand-alone novels set in the world of the Queen’s Thief. Return of the Thief marks her long-awaited conclusion to the epic and unforgettable story of the thief Eugenides—a story more than twenty years in the making. She has been awarded a Newbery Honor and a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature. She has twice been a finalist for the Andre Norton Award and won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature.

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    Reviews for The Thief

    4/5

    1,828 ratings130 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title to be a mixed bag. Some reviewers found the book boring and complained about the slow pace and repetitive elements. However, others enjoyed the compelling storytelling and myth building. The audio book version was also mentioned as more tolerable. Despite the negative reviews, there were also fans who absolutely loved the book and considered it their all-time favorite series. Overall, the book has its flaws but still manages to captivate readers with its fascinating story and engaging narration.

    What did you think?

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    • 5/5

      Oct 30, 2024

      This is an amazing book! Full of thrilling adventures! This is a must-read!!!
    • 3/5

      May 13, 2024

      there is a lot of tell but not show and the overall story is incredibly underwhelming. I will recommend this to people who are just getting into fantasy
    • 5/5

      Apr 13, 2024

      what a great story! So refreshing to have a well written story unfold
    • 5/5

      Feb 6, 2024

      So great loved it favorite book ever this is so
    • 5/5

      Sep 11, 2023

      This book, is fantastic, and the narrator makes it even better. Holy moly.
    • 5/5

      Sep 11, 2023

      I am obsessed with these books and they have become my all time favorite series. I hope they eventually turn the series into a movie or series. I am so sad that there are no more books for me to read!
    • 1/5

      Sep 11, 2023

      Unbearably boring. We get it Gen, you are tired, you are hungry, you are an amazing thief. Good grief please stop.
    • 5/5

      Sep 11, 2023

      Great book. I truly loved it! It was incredibly well read.
    • 3/5

      Sep 11, 2023

      Quick to read, and enjoyable. Relatively typical fantasy -- nothing particularly new, in my experience -- and kind of fails to get me totally absorbed. The background world of the story is interesting and I was glad to learn about that, but I didn't feel an urgent need to keep reading it for the sake of the characters. I did like Pol and Sophos, but wasn't overly concerned about them, either.

      I shouldn't have been surprised that a thief would be an unreliable narrator. It's interesting to think back and see the clues embedded in the narrative.

      I wished there'd been more of the part in Eddis, really. That all felt like winding-down-the-story, not an interesting part in its own right, which was disappointing.

      Will probably read the other books: they're nice relaxing brain candy, if they're like this one.
    • 3/5

      Sep 11, 2023

      Beth Revis said that there was a twist at the end, and I thought I'd predicted it.

      Which is true, but there were at least two twists I didn't see!

      I should reread it because I know I missed something in the writing.
    • 2/5

      Sep 11, 2023

      I only made it halfway through the book and the only thing that has happened is the main character complains and whines for 8 chapters as they travel on a road... how many chapters do you need to write about riding a horse on a trail. I just can't listen anymore.
    • 3/5

      Sep 11, 2023

      Liked enough to continue with the series
    • 3/5

      Sep 11, 2023

      Twas sometimes fun, twas sometimes boring. Other than that, I don't have much to say about The Thief. Can't wait to read the next book in the series though!
    • 3/5

      Jan 15, 2025

      I have no idea how this ended up in my kindle library. It’s part of Prime Reading, so I probably got it for free, but I have no memory of adding it. It was...okay. Not the sort of thing that I usually read, it’s an adventure story set in a fantasy land that closely mirrors Ancient Greece. The author is quite a fan of the country and its history, and it shows, because I actually learned several terms about Greek culture from this book that I had not known before.
      The story is told from the first person view by Eugenies, a notorious thief named after the god of thieves himself. After being rescued from the King’s prison by the King’s mage, he is told that he is being voluntold to steal a precious stone so that the King may present it to the Queen of a neighboring country as a wedding gift. I will not lie, the story is tedious and very slow in parts. There is a lot of traveling, and not much happens for the first half of the book. Fortunately, the characters are interesting and engaging, especially the main character, who is highly skilled at what he does and has many secrets. I was unable to tell whether he was male or female for a good portion of the book, and once I figured it out, it wasn’t too important to the story, which I thought made it better. Despite the fact that it picks up a little in the second half, I will admit I wasn’t considering checking out the next in the series until I got to the ending, which was quite a surprise. I think it kind of saved the rest of the novel for me. I’ve heard the second book is much better, and I may pick that one up in the future.

      P.S. For some reason, throughout the whole book I kept imagining the Magus as Farengar from Skyrim, complete with that haughty voice of his. Possibly this was because they’re both incredibly stuck up. :P
    • 4/5

      Dec 27, 2024

      Trying to get through the first four books so I can read Thick as Thieves, & to figure out whether this latest book (that's being marketed as YA) is truly YA or could live on the shelf next to the other four in the children's room. I also have to replace this original book because the cover is so scary bad that no one would want to read it.
    • 2/5

      Dec 18, 2024

      I suppose any book will accumulate reviewers who love or hate it, but I can't help being puzzled by both in this case. It seems to me a competent and sufficiently entertaining story, neither boring nor wonderful. It travels unhurriedly to where it wants to go, and readers who demand the clash of swords on every page may be bored, but I'm not one of them.

      It's described as a fantasy novel, but it's not strongly fantastic. Like most fantasy, it's set in a world similar to Earth in mediæval times, but apparently not our Earth. I don't see any magic at work in it. There are gods that seem to be real; in this book, they could be argued to be figments of the imagination or hallucinations, but it seems clear from the sequels that they're intended to be real.

      The first-person protagonist is a youth of unspecified age, apparently adult, and a professional thief (hence the title). Some readers like him a lot; I found him tolerable, but rather annoying for much of the time. In the sequels, he becomes intermittently likeable.

      I'm also puzzled that this is described as a Young Adult novel. It seems to me a normal light-fantasy novel. The hero is a young adult, yes, but so are the heroes of very many other novels. Whatever next? Are we going to see novels categorized as Middle-Aged Adult novels or Elderly Adult novels? Bah, humbug.

      The hero is described as a skilled and clever thief, but the author usually makes life easy for herself by showing the results rather than the process: we find out that he's stolen this or that, without seeing how he does it.
    • 3/5

      Sep 22, 2023

      More tolerable as an audio book. The story is compelling but the writing is sub-par and clunky. It seems like it takes 9 chapters for the action to pick up. That being said, the storytelling and myth building is fascinating.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5

      Nov 10, 2024

      The first in an amazing alternative-past history series (the fourth is coming out in March). I read the third book in the series first and then went back to read the first two. I felt no loss of enjoyment in reading them out of order--the books stand alone. I hesitate to call them fantasy--they are more like Etruscan alternative history.

      The main character of the first book is Eugenides, hero-thief. The second book explores the character of the mysterious Queen of Attolia--you couldn't ask for a smarter, stronger, and more flawed female role model. And the third book provides a different perspective of the Queen's life, taken from the eyes of a soldier.

      I've recommended this book to teens who liked Cashore's Graceling. This series is tough stuff--I would recommend it more for teens and adults than tweens. But I've seen certain 12 year olds gobble it up. Definitely worth a read no matter what age you are.
    • 5/5

      Sep 28, 2022

      A young thief is offered a way out of prison - if he'll assist in a theft. This is a pretty formula start for what turns out to be an adventure that makes the tropes its own and owns every one. There are a few stutters in this first book that are left behind in later volumes, but if this one appeal the whole, long awaited saga is one of the best series reads in fantasy.
    • 4/5

      Aug 17, 2022

      I love this, and I love the whole series: it's a perpetual comfort-read. The first time I read it I was frequently fooled by Gen's narration (and other characters' silences), which I loved, and re-reading it now I love spotting the moments of misdirection, as well as the foreshadowing for future novels. Just sheer fun.
    • 4/5

      Sep 11, 2023

      Gen is the best thief in the land--too bad he's also the most boastful. After stealing the king's seal and showing it off to his cronies in a wine shop, Gen is caught and throne in jail to rot. But eventually, the king realizes he has need of him. Gen is sent on a mission to steal something (what, he is not told) under the watchful eyes of the Magus, his two apprentices, and a soldier. As the quest gets more dangerous, bad luck and lies damage the tenuous friendships formed among the group.

      Told in the first person, and masterfully done. The last few chapters felt a little weak compared to the tense, taut writing elsewhere.
    • 3/5

      Feb 17, 2022

      It was alright, but having heard there was a twist, I considered what it (they?) was likely to be and was a little disappointed to be proven completely right. The quent was alright, but I was never very fond of the characters.
    • 5/5

      Dec 26, 2021

      This book is totally engrossing and I love it. The premise of the story isnt super interesting at first, but once you start it you get drawn in both by the setting and characters and you cant stop reading. The main character is one of my favorite fictional characters, he just feels very real to me and I got attached years ago the first time I read this book. Other characters are also very interesting with a variety of motivations and personalities. The setting is refreshing for a fantasy novel, Greek inspired instead the kinda British medival thing a lot of books have happening. I really like Greek mythology as well so it was fun to see this world inspired by that. While reading this it reminded my quite a bit of a Diana Wynne Jones book, and then in the authors notes at the end I learned that Megan Whalen Turner is actually a DWJ fan and even included a brief Howls Moving Castle quote within the book, which I thought was cool. :)
    • 5/5

      Nov 26, 2021

      In an almost-but-not-quite ancient Greek city-state, the magus is forcing Gen, the thief, to steal something from the gods (which the magus doesn’t believe in) for his kingdom; the thief does it for his own kingdom. Beware of gods.
    • 3/5

      Mar 19, 2021

      Rating: 2.5/5

      I was mildly disappointed about my first read of 2014. I expected a little bit more of excitement and adventure and I ended up skimming the pages and waiting for the final page to be honest.

      Why the 3 stars you say? The little twist at the end was surprisingly good and stirred enough of my curiosity to push me pursuing the rest of the series; which according to the raving reviews, is much better than the first installment.

      Let's hope that's true!
    • 4/5

      Dec 11, 2020

      This was my first foray into this series, and I enjoyed it very much. In fact, it was one of those books that I liked more and more as I went along. Turner somehow manages to keep you completely engaged and convinced you're following the story just fine while all the while building up to a wonderful reveal/twist. Gen, the main character, is fascinating and just gets more and more so as the story goes on. I'm looking forward to reading more in the series.
    • 3/5

      Jun 27, 2020

      I'm not sure if I actually listened. I was passively listening. I think it was a lot of world building. There were some sentences arranged a fair bit of dialogue.

      I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying I wasn't really listening. I was listening *for* Steve West. And *to* him. Just not really much about the story. I caught enough to read on, and will do so.
    • 1/5

      Apr 27, 2020

      I read this book because I heard a lot of hype on the internet about it, but I ended up not liking it at all.

      The prose was smooth and engrossing, I'll give the author that. But emotionally the book was deeply unsatisfying. I rooted for Gen from the beginning because I sympathized with him as the underdog, a poor thief being used as a tool by nobles who cared nothing for him. He was mocked by the nobles around him for being uncouth gutter scum, and I was with him because I knew he was much cleverer than they gave him credit for.

      But then at the end we get a sudden reveal that Eugenides is actually upper-class himself, he was never an underdog, and was not being used by the nobility. This took away a lot of the feelings I'd built up for him from the beginning. It left an especially bad taste in my mouth given Eugenides's classist comments at the end, about how he hated chewing with his mouth open and how much he hated hanging out with lower class people in Sunis. So not only was Ambiodes mistaken when he made fun of Eugenides's low birth, but Eugenides actually agrees with Ambiodes that lower class people are gutter scum! I really hate that the narrative ultimately sides with that bully.
    • 4/5

      Apr 16, 2020

      Re-reading after 10 years because the new sequels sound so good. The story is pretty short and simple, but for me the Thief is a more enjoyable read as an adult than it was as a child.
    • 3/5

      May 27, 2019

      A solid fantasy with a whiff of Greek mythology and a determined thief.