8 YA Heist Novels You Won’t Be Able to Put Down

Six very different people are brought together in the first book of this fantasy duology. Kaz Brekkar has the chance to pull off the job of a lifetime, which will set him up for good and allow him to get revenge on the man who wronged him years ago. But first, he needs to assemble his crew: a thief, a spy, a Heartrender, a sharpshooter, a runaway, and a convict all come together for the sake of the money, but soon find that in order to survive, much less finish the job, they’ll have to learn how to trust one another.

Margo Manning is a California socialite with a secret double life. While she appears to have an opulent life worth envying with paparazzi shadowing her by day, by night she steals from the rich (for noble reasons) pulling off audacious heists with some of her best friends: a team of fabulous drag queens. But when things gets personal, Margo finds herself with her back against the wall, forced to pull off the most daring job of her career or risk losing everything.

Will and Harriet are both students at the same girls’ prep school, but that’s where the similarities end. When they find themselves in detention after a run-in with the school’s misogynistic swim coach, they team up to create a fake persona — Amelia Westlake — to submit funny, not-so-subtle cartoons critiquing said swim coach to the school newspaper. Soon, their cartoons are the most talked-about thing at school, and it isn’t long before Will and Harriet are pulling off bigger pranks and heists in the name of feminism, all the while trying not to get caught — or fall for each other!

Séverin Montagnet-Alarie is a hotelier in magical Belle Epoque Paris who has a secret double life as a thief. He leads a team in heists that target some of the wealthiest families in Paris, stealing away their magical artifacts. His team all has their own motivations for what they do, but so does Séverin: He doesn’t steal just to get rich, but to finally lay his hands on an artifact that will restore him to his rightful place. Of course, they aren’t the only ones looking to get their hands on the mysterious Babel Fragment, which puts them on a race against time. This is a diverse and magical heist story brimming with intrigue and surprises.

Rags is a thief in a fantasy world, and he’s a pretty, in fact. But when he’s kidnapped by a sorcerer and ordered to steal a bunch of magical relics for some serious world-ending plans, even he has to admit he might be out of his depth. Especially when he realizes that these relics aren’t just objects, but people. But if Rags can do what the evil sorcerer orders, and turn it around so they’re united against a common enemy, maybe they can all save themselves.

Zoe can’t stand Digby when she first meets him. All she wants to do is lay low in her new town and have a nice, normal social life. But then Digby starts ringing her doorbell and coming around, demanding that she help him find out what happened to his missing sister. Over the course of this hilarious and outrageous trilogy of books, Zoe and Digby definitely get into some trouble and do a little light breaking and entering, with a high-stakes heist.