Series Review - Queen's Thief: A Series by Megan Whalen Turner

Series Reviews discuss at least three books in a series and cover the overarching themes and development of the story across several books. Thank you to Patron Case Aiken who receives a monthly shoutout.

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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.

PUBLISHER: Greenwillow Books
LENGTH: 300 to 450 pages per book, there are six books as of spring 2025
AGE: Young Adult
GENRE: Fantasy, Romance
RECOMMENDED: Highly

Queer Rep Summary: Gay/Achillean Secondary Character(s).

TITLES IN SERIES

1. The Thief (1996)
2. The Queen of Attolia (2000)
3. The King of Attolia (2006)
4. A Conspiracy of Kings (2010)
5. Thick as Thieves (2017)
6. Return of the Thief (2020)

• Moira's Pen (2022)

Minimal Spoiler Zone

Series Premise

Queen's Thief begins as the story of one mysterious man on a journey, and transforms into the story of a tangle of countries, their rulers, what it means to rule, and how to exist as sovereign and spectacle without losing the person inside. Each book contains a journey narrative, with characters traveling from place to place, either in a small group or as part of a much larger force. If you like The Thief, be prepared for the scope to change as the series matures. Eugenides narrates the first two books, and remains very much in focus throughout the series, but the later entries are told from other perspectives.

Themes

Major themes include politics, diplomacy, disability, subterfuge, grief, responsibility, and war.

Main Characters

Eugenides is the narrator of the first two books, and remains a major player throughout the series. He is the titular thief, and the emotional anchor of the Queen's Thief novels. Each of the later books in the main series have had a different narrator or set of narrators, with their own histories and mixed levels of knowledge about Eugenides. Other important characters include various monarchs, advisers (such as the Magus), guards, and at least one slave. 

How Queer Is It?

Queerness is treated casually and as an unremarkable type of relationship or desire. There is at least one specifically achillean (gay) relationship between secondary characters in the later books. Even though I can only recall one obviously queer relationship, the genders of the people involved weren't commented on at all as if they were unusual.  

Setting

The setting is inspired by ancient Greece, but it is not meant to be Greece, nor is the technology restricted to that of thousands of years ago. Most battle involves swords or spears, but some guards carry wheel-lock pistols, and the army has cannons. Magic exists, but often magic and the gods have more spiritual than logistical importance... to anyone other than Eugenides, that is. The focus remains tight around Eugenides and those close to him up through the first several books, but three of the journey narratives in later books take the characters away from familiar locations for substantial portions of their stories. One of the series' constants is those journey narratives, with characters spending a lot of time travelling and conversing, their actions and opportunities shaped by place and by their traveling companions. If there's a time when a main character travelled alone, I've forgotten it as brief and unimportant, a temporary blip in a long string of journeys with captors, friends, enemies, slavers, and armies. The main countries on the island are Eddis, Attolia, and Sounis, and their monarchs take the names of their country as their own.

Content Warnings

Major Series CWs: classism, sexism, ableism, injury detail, fire, kidnapping, confinement, violence, torture, amputation, war, slavery, murder, death.

Miscellaneous CWs: medical content, medical trauma, epidemic.

 If you like this you may like:

• The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard

Here There Be Spoilers

The Twist

Eugenides was not a random thief, and his actions in the first book were meant to get him captured, meant to provoke a response and put him in a position to get something which was immensely valuable to his queen. That he was not just a thief, but The Thief, the Thief of Eddis, is a twist that can only happen once, and prompts a major tone shift between the first book and the rest of the series. 

Disability

Early in the second book, while he is still the main character, Eugenides loses his hand while in another country's prison. It is a deeply traumatizing experience, as it was in the context of imprisonment and torture. There is no magical solution or cure, nor is one seriously pursued. Throughout the remainder of the series he seems to come to terms with his amputee status. At first he alternates between a prosthetic hand and a hook, but in the later books he favors the hook for its utility, no longer trying to pretend normalcy for other people's comfort. 

The narrator of the sixth book (who also briefly appears in the fifth) has a congenital disability which is known to run in his family. He can't speak and he pretends to be stupid, but it is obvious to the reader from the start that at least some of this is an act because, as the narrator, he is writing down this whole story at some later date. This pretense is for his own safety, as several members of his family will loudly and repeatedly express ableist and eugenicist opinions in his vicinity. Later on it is shown that he knows a form of sign language, one which is implied to have been passed down in his family for the benefit of the nonspeaking members who are occasionally born. At the very least, the sign language existed before he was born and was taught to him by his childhood nurse. He is treated with various degrees of ableism by the people around him, some of whom assume he is unaware of their insults, but the overall framing of the story clearly condemns their actions and has an anti-ableism message on the whole. Part of the implicit (and occasionally explicit) critique of the ableism around him is that it is both bigoted and detrimental, leading other people to underestimate him and misunderstand what is happening.

Later Series Developments

In the third book, Eugenides maneuvers himself  into becoming the titular King of Attolia, married to the Queen who had his hand cut off just one book earlier. Their relationship is one of the strangest in the series, confounding those around them who are sure he must have married her in some kind of revenge, that he could not possibly actually love her. It is clear that he does, but that their affection has room for a great deal of strain without breaking. The fact that they are now king and queen of a country means that a great deal of what goes on between them in public is necessarily performative, even if that performance is just for their attendants. Eugenides is only the point-of-view character for the first two books, which means that The King of Attolia is told through someone else's perspective. This shift away allows for narrative twists to be preserved even after major revelations (such as his true identity in the first book) have come out. 

Flow

I've seen conflicting information about whether the books can be treated as stand-alone entries. I can agree that the variety of narrators later on makes it easier to jump in partway through the series, but to do so would put the reader more in the position of that book's narrator, viewing events afresh and with limited background knowledge. It would be best to read the series in publishing order, but, if someone were determined to read the series beginning in the middle, I would recommend treating it as a series of duologies. The Thief and The Queen of Attolia are closely tied together (not only because they share a narrator). The King of Attolia and A Conspiracy of Kings work as a pair and ought not be separated. Finally, Thick As Thieves and Return of the Thief overlap in time and contain references to each other beyond just referring to past events within the series. Things are set in motion in Thick As Thieves which reach their conclusion in Return of the Thief. 

Structurally, the series takes advantage of changes in narrator and in the level of information known by each person in a way that I'm sure other series have done before, but with a deftness and subtlety which surprised and delighted me. 

Current Status

Return of the Thief is the sixth book and was marketed as the final entry in the series, but was followed a few years later by the story collection, Moira's Pen. Moira's Pen includes some stories which were already included within the main series, as well as several new stories, some of which take place long after Return of the Thief. It answers the shape of what happened after the main series concludes, and wraps up what little felt open after Return of the Thief ended. Moira's Pen also includes some descriptions of the inspiration for various parts of the series, framed in a way which acknowledges their status as fiction. These seven books have been published over more than two decades, and there has not been a long enough gap since the most recent entry to let me declare confidently that the series is over. Regardless of how that ends up, the series calls itself complete and the shape of the ending supports that notion. 

Bookshop Affiliate Buy Links:

• The Thief
• The Queen of Attolia
• The King of Attolia
• A Conspiracy of Kings
• Thick as Thieves
• Return of the Thief
• Moira's Pen

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