Heists to Steal Your Heart
Fan-favorite author M. K. Lobb of Seven Faceless Saints is BACK, people! In honor of her new book, To Steal from Thieves, I’ve stolen a top-secret list of books for you from NOVL headquarters. It’s a highly sought-after list of the best heist novels on the market today.
Yes, I had to go through a maze of red lasers. I had to use my grappling hook once or twice. I had to wear a bevy of disguises including (but not limited to) a security guard with aviator sunglasses and a bushy mustache, a rich old society lady who is the last known user of the monocle, and baker Buddy Valastro from the now-cancelled TV show Cake Boss. Do I still have icing stuck in my hair? Maybe. Was it worth it? Absolutely. ANYTHING FOR YOU, my lovely NOVLers!
Now, forget I was ever here, and get reading!!! I’ll be back when book two in the Thieves & Kings series comes out, hehehee….
To Steal from Thieves
by M. K. Lobb
In this new series we follow our heroine Zaria and her best friend Jules through the shimmering, misty, cobblestone streets of London, circa 1851. The goal? Steal a certain necklace. The problem? An annoying (and handsome) conman named Kane Durante keeps getting in the way. OH, THE TENSION! THE INTRIGUE! It’s giving me… Peaky Blinders. Or Sherlock Holmes (the one with Robert Downey, Jr.) M.K., you absolute mastermind! Book two can’t come fast enough!
Within the dazzling halls of London’s Crystal Palace, the event of the season has arrived: The Great Exhibition. An opportunity for the greatest minds of the century to come together under one roof in an unprecedented display of wealth, magic, and power. And for two unlikely partners in crime, it’s about to become the score of a lifetime.
Charming conman Kane Durante works alone—or on occasion with his adopted brother, Fletcher. But when his boss, the infamous Kingpin of London’s magical dark market, gives him the impossible task of stealing a priceless artifact from the Great Exhibition, he knows it’s a job he can’t pull off alone. Enter Zaria Mendoza, daughter of one of London’s greatest alchemologists. Ever since her father’s death, Zaria’s been struggling to keep her underground business afloat, and impatient clients are becoming violent. When the infuriatingly handsome Kane offers her the promise of enough money to get out of debt and leave London entirely, she knows she can’t walk away from this dangerous partnership.
But robbing one of the most public, heavily-guarded buildings in London isn’t going to be easy, especially when love and betrayal threaten to ruin everything they’ve worked so hard for.
Heiress Among Thieves
by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka
YAAAY!!!!! Our favorite glamorous ringleader Olivia Owens returns! This series is the perfect, delectable mixture of Knives Out, Oceans 8, and Gossip Girl. If you thought Heiress Takes All was a nail-biter… just. Buckle. Up. We’re going to the land of the mysterious Swiss bank account. We know what that means… (translation: we have no idea what that means.)
Stealing from her rich family was supposed to be a fun winter getaway for teen mastermind Olivia Owens, but when a rival thief, a love triangle, and a murder suspect interfere, she’ll have to decide how far she’s willing to go for the vault full of gold—and for the boy she loves.
When teen heiress and heist leader Olivia Owens receives an invitation for her cold-hearted grandmother’s seventieth birthday at the family’s inherited Swiss castle, only one thing entices her to accept: the vault full of gold waiting in the castle’s frigid dungeons. Assembling her old crew of high school criminals, now including her boyfriend Jackson, Olivia feels more prepared than ever for grand theft.
But not everything is what it seems when they arrive. For starters, the reunion turns out to be less of a party and more of a wake. Her grandmother announces that she’s dying … and plans to be buried with her fortune. Suddenly the entire greedy Owens clan turns their eyes toward Olivia’s target. It’s hard enough to steal something everyone’s looking at, but an old backstabber, a new suitor, and an uninvited guest add fuel to the fire until Olivia is desperately trying to hold the pieces of her plan—and her crew—together.
As Olivia faces her family’s dark legacy of deceit, grift, and maybe even murder, she’s forced to weigh how deeply she loves Jackson with how her love might destroy him. She didn’t choose her family, but now she has to choose—who she loves, who she trusts, and who she’s willing to risk to get what she wants. In a family of thieves, this might cost her everything.
The Drowned Woods
This heist novel comes with a dark fairy-world twist. Set in the same world as The Bone Houses, The Drowned Woods peppers real-life folklore and haunting fantasy elements into the heist stew we’re making. YUM YUM!!!
In this magical, ethereal fantasy novel from the bestselling author of The Bone Houses a crew led by a magic welding woman fight to take down the overpowered prince that used and abused them.
Once upon a time, the kingdoms of Wales were rife with magic and conflict, and eighteen-year-old Mererid “Mer” is well-acquainted with both. She is the last living water diviner and has spent years running from the prince who bound her into his service. Under the prince’s orders, she located the wells of his enemies, and he poisoned them without her knowledge, causing hundreds of deaths. After discovering what he had done, Mer went to great lengths to disappear from his reach. Then Mer’s old handler returns with a proposition: use her powers to bring down the very prince that abused them both.
The best way to do that is to destroy the magical well that keeps the prince’s lands safe. With a motley crew of allies, including a fae-cursed young man, the lady of thieves, and a corgi that may or may not be a spy, Mer may finally be able to steal precious freedom and peace for herself. After all, a person with a knife is one thing…but a person with a cause can topple kingdoms.
The Drowned Woods—set in the same world as The Bone Houses but with a whole new, unforgettable cast of characters—is part heist novel, part dark fairy tale.
Trinkets
OMG you guys. This book is like The Bling Ring, but a lot more heartwarming. It’s girl power, it’s misfit central, and it’s one-of-a-kind. If you have a penchant for 90s grunge aesthetic like me, I highly recommend!! Not to mention, you can binge the Netflix series afterword!
Now a Netflix Original Series! The Breakfast Club meets Leah on the Offbeat in this story of female friendships that break all the rules.
Tabitha, Elodie, and Moe: a beauty queen, a wallflower, and a burnout. Tabitha has just about everything she wants: money, friends, popularity, a hot boyfriend who worships her… and a yen for stealing. So does Elodie, who, despite her goodie-two-shoes attitude pretty much has “klepto” written across her forehead. Neither of them are anything compared to Moe, a bad girl with an even worse reputation. But the day that Tabitha and Elodie walk into Moe’s Shoplifters Anonymous meeting, everything changes. When Tabitha challenges them to a steal-off, they forge a strange alliance linked by the thrill of stealing, and the reasons that spawn it. A more unlikely trio high school has rarely seen.
Hollywood screenwriter Kirsten Smith tells this story from multiple perspectives with humor and warmth as three very different girls who are supposed to be learning the steps to recovery somehow end up on the road to friendship.
The Inheritance Games
You know a list about heists and thieves wouldn’t be complete without a JLB book. If I’m ever planning a heist, she is DEFINITELY ON MY TEAM! Chock full of twists and turns, this whole series is just MWAH!!! (*chef’s kiss*).
OVER 4 MILLION COPIES SOLD OF THE #1 BESTSELLING SERIES!
Don’t miss this New York Times bestselling “impossible to put down” (Buzzfeed) novel with deadly stakes, thrilling twists, and juicy secrets—perfect for fans of One of Us is Lying and Knives Out.
Avery Grambs has a plan for a better future: survive high school, win a scholarship, and get out. But her fortunes change in an instant when billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves Avery virtually his entire fortune. The catch? Avery has no idea why—or even who Tobias Hawthorne is.
To receive her inheritance, Avery must move into sprawling, secret passage-filled Hawthorne House, where every room bears the old man’s touch—and his love of puzzles, riddles, and codes. Unfortunately for Avery, Hawthorne House is also occupied by the family that Tobias Hawthorne just dispossessed. This includes the four Hawthorne grandsons: dangerous, magnetic, brilliant boys who grew up with every expectation that one day, they would inherit billions. Heir apparent Grayson Hawthorne is convinced that Avery must be a conwoman, and he’s determined to take her down. His brother, Jameson, views her as their grandfather’s last hurrah: a twisted riddle, a puzzle to be solved. Caught in a world of wealth and privilege with danger around every turn, Avery will have to play the game herself just to survive.
**The games continue in The Hawthorne Legacy, The Final Gambit, and The Brothers Hawthorne, all available now,and Games Untold, available for preorder!
And don’t miss the start of a thrilling new series set in the world of the Inheritance Games, The Grandest Game, available for preorder now!
Heist Society
by Ally Carter
This one is a bit of a vintage read, people. But let me tell you, Ally Carter was one of my absolute FAVORITE authors when I was in high school. Ally Carter walked so our many top-tier heist novels today could RUN!!!!
Kat Bishop can steal anything-including your heart. Intrigue, adventure, romance, and charm abound in this New York Times bestselling series.
For as long as she can remember, Katarina has been a part of the family business-thieving. When Kat tries to leave “the life” for a normal life, her old friend Hale conspires to bring her back into the fold. Why? A mobster’s art collection has been stolen, and Kat’s father is the only suspect. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat’s dad needs her help.
The only solution is to find the paintings and steal them back. Kat’s got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family’s history-and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.
With its glamorous international settings, intriguing suspense, complicated cons and even more complicated romance, Heist Society is stealing the hearts of Ally Carter fans everywhere.
The Girl in Question
by Tess Sharpe
Tess Sharpe can do no wrong! In this follow-up to the bank robbery masterpiece that is The Girls I’ve Been, we follow daughter-of-a-con-artist Nora, who now must steal something ELSE…and the stakes are even higher. She has to steal her friend back from her evil step-father!!! The unmissable, thrilling follow-up to the New York Times bestselling The Girls I’ve Been!
Four teens. Three henchmen. Two thousand acres of remote forest. One very bad man. And a whole lot of new secrets to unearth.
High school is over, but Nora O’Malley’s life isn’t, which is weird now that her murderous stepdad Raymond is free. Determined to enjoy summer before her (possibly) imminent demise, Nora plans a ten day backpacking trip with Iris and Wes. Her plans hit a snag when Wes’s girlfriend tags along. Amanda is nice, so it’s not a huge issue—until she gets taken. Or rather, mistaken…for Nora. All because of a borrowed flannel.
Now Raymond has a hostage. Nora has no leverage. Iris has a spear and Wes is building boobytraps. It’ll take all of their skillsto make it out of the forest alive.
There are three problems: Someone is lying. Someone is keeping secrets.
And someone has to die.
Midnight Thief
by Livia Blackburn
Kyra is one of the best girl-power heroines I’ve read in a while! She’s brave yet vulnerable, and her spirit and determination make this high-fantasy novel impossible to put down. Also, for readers who maybe want a liiiiitle break from romance, this one focuses more on the ACTION!!
Growing up on Forge’s streets has taught Kyra how to stretch a coin. And when that’s not enough, her uncanny ability to scale walls and bypass guards helps her take what she needs.
But when the leader of the Assassins Guild offers Kyra a lucrative job, she hesitates. She knows how to get by on her own, and she’s not sure she wants to play by his rules. But he is persistent-and darkly attractive-and Kyra can’t quite resist his pull.
Tristam of Brancel is a young Palace knight on a mission. After his best friend is brutally murdered by the Demon Riders, a clan of vicious warriors who ride bloodthirsty wildcats, Tristam vows to take them down. But as his investigation deepens, he finds his efforts thwarted by a talented thief, one who sneaks past Palace defenses with uncanny ease.
When a fateful raid throws Kyra and Tristam together, the two enemies realize that their best chance at survival-and vengeance-might be to join forces. And as their loyalties are tested to the breaking point, they learn a startling secret about Kyra’s past that threatens to reshape both their lives.
In her arresting debut novel, Livia Blackburne creates a captivating world where intrigue prowls around every corner-and danger is a way of life.
Praise for Midnight Thief
“Blackburne’s fast-paced fantasy will please fans of Leigh Bardugo and Tamora Pierce.”
–School Library Journal