crothe77 's review for:

Heiress Among Thieves by Emily Wibberley, Austin Siegemund-Broka
emotional mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
 
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy

Heiress Among Thieves by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka is the first person-POV YA contemporary heist sequel to Heiress Takes All. Olivia, Jackson, Tom, and the rest of their crew are back to perform another heist. This time, they’ll take the gold and jewels belonging to Olivia’s grandmother, Leonie, before Olivia’s other family members can take them. But when Leonie announces that she’s dying, it throws all of their plans out of whack.

I was not aware that this was a sequel when I requested it and that is my fault for not checking. I think that I need to go back and read the first book so I can have a much better grasp of Olivia and Jackson’s romantic relationship. It is pretty firmly established in Heiress Among Thieves and there isn’t a ton of development in relation to backstory or how their relationship started, which makes me think most of that occurred in the first book and this was not meant to be read as a standalone. As such, if a reader wants to pick this up because they are interested in the romance aspects, I’m gonna suggest reading the first book beforehand. 

Of all the relationships in the book, the one that interested me the most is the one between Leonie and Olivia. Olivia is estranged from her father, Leonie’s son, and has a very complicated relationship with the rest of her family as she is the black sheep and didn’t grow up in the same lap of luxury that they did. Leonie is initially quite hostile to Olivia and is often trying to convince Olivia to give up Jackson because she only sees doom for their relationship, doom that would come at Olivia’s hands. There’s something really interesting about a character seeing so much of themselves in a grandchild they barely know and kept trying to push away and then give romantic advice meant to spare the love interest not their grandchild. 

I wouldn’t quite call this a thriller because it’s more pushed forward by character dynamics rather than revelations and twists like I would expect in a thriller. There certainly are twists and it is definitely a heist book, but it’s missing those key aspects I would associate with a thriller. It might be a suspense but I’m not super familiar with the subgenre in the YA space to say for sure. It is heavier on voice than atmosphere and the worldbuilding tends to come only when needed, which does contribute to it feeling more voice-driven.

I would recommend this to fans of YA and heist books and readers looking for a Succession-style YA book