Adventure and Spy (YA)

If you like your books with lots of action then this is the list for you: this is a selection of spy, action, adventure and survival stories from our YA (young adult) collections.

Updated June 19, 2024
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The electric kingdom
Arnold, David
Paper Book
New York Times bestseller David Arnold's most ambitious novel to date; Station Eleven meets The 5th Wave in a genre-smashing story of survival, hope, and love amid a ravaged earth. When a deadly Fly Flu sweeps the globe, it leaves a shell of the world that...
The cruelty
Bergstrom, Scott
Paper Book
The Cruelty is an action-packed young adult thriller (optioned for film by Jerry Bruckheimer) about a girl who must train as an assassin to deal with the gangsters who have kidnapped her father. Gwendolyn's father kept his life a secret from her. When he goes missing,...
An assassin's guide to love & treason
Boecker, Virginia
Paper Book
Shakespeare in Love meets Mr. and Mrs. Smith in this witty and thrilling story of star-crossed assassins in Elizabeth England, perfect for fans of My Lady Jane and TheGentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue! When Lady Katherine's father is killed...
Etiquette & espionage
Carriger, Gail.
Paper Book
This steampunk series debut set in the same world as the New York Times bestselling Parasol Protectorate is filled with all the saucy adventure and droll humor Gail Carriger's legions of fans have come to adore. Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great...
I'd tell you I love you, but then I'd have to kill you
Carter, Ally.
Paper Book
Step into Cammie Morgan's world of intrigue in the first book of the beloved New York Times bestselling Gallagher Girls series Cammie Morgan is a student at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, a fairly typical all-girls school -- that is, if every school...
The love interest
Dietrich, Cale
Paper Book
There is a secret organization that cultivates teenage spies. The agents are called Love Interests because getting close to people destined for great power means getting valuable secrets. Caden is a Nice: The boy next door, sculpted to physical perfection. Dylan is a Bad: The...
Blitzkrieg
Falkner, Brian
Paper Book
Young Joe is living in pre-WWII Berlin, with his British father and NZ mother, attending school and witnessing the excitement of his friends who are enthusiastically joining the Hitler Youth Movement. Joe feels uncomfortable with the growing mistreatment of local Jews, and after the arrest of his...

New Zealand author

Foul Lady Fortune
Gong, Chloe
Paper Book
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights and Our Violent Ends comes the "equal parts intoxicating and dazzling" (Roshani Chokshi, New York Times bestselling author of The Gilded Wolves) first book in a captivating new duology...

New Zealand author

The cut out
Heath, Jack
Paper Book
An ordinary teenager's world turns upside down when he's mistaken for a ruthless young spy. An action thriller suitable for readers of Cherub or The Last Thirteen.
Silverfin
Higson, Charles
Paper Book
Young Bond: SilverFin is the first explosive book in Charlie Higson's bestselling Young Bond series. Before the name became a legend. Before the boy became a man. Meet Bond. James Bond. There's something in the water at Loch Silverfin. Something...
Stormbreaker
Horowitz, Anthony
Paper Book
The first book in the number one bestselling Alex Rider series. In the first book in the number one bestselling Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz, fourteen-year-old Alex is forcibly recruited into MI6. Armed with secret gadgets, he is sent to investigate Herod Sayle, a man...
Stars and smoke
Lu, Marie
Paper Book
An Instant New York Times bestseller! He's a secret. She's an agent. This mission might just be impossible. A smoldering enemies-to-lovers novel about a global superstar and a hotshot young spy on a collision course with danger&...
Flight of the fantail
Matuku, Steph
Paper Book
A busload of high school students crashes in the bush in a remote part of Aotearoa, New Zealand. Only a few of the teenagers survive; they find their phones don't work, there's no food, and they've only got their wits to keep them alive. There's also something strange happening here. Why are the...

New Zealand author

The recruit
Muchamore, Robert.
Paper Book
A young foster child gets inducted into an elite group of underage spies in this gripping first book in the young adult CHERUB series perfect for graduates of City Spies and Spy School. Following the death of his mother, eleven-year-old James Choke gets separated from his half...
The call
O? Guilin, Peadar
Paper Book
What if you only had three minutes to save your life and the clock is already counting down. Three minutes: you wake up alone in a horrible land. A horn sounds. You realize you've been Called. Two minutes: they're getting closer and despite all your training you're exhausted, you can't see anywhere...
The loop
Oliver, Ben (Science fiction writer)
Paper Book
"A script-ready story with blockbuster potential." -- Kirkus (Starred Review)Life inside The Loop--the futuristic death row for teens under eighteen--is one long repetitive purgatory. But when news of the encroaching chaos in the outside world reaches the inmates and disorder begins to strike...
War girls
Onyebuchi, Tochi
Paper Book
Two sisters are torn apart by war and must fight their way back to each other in a futuristic, Black Panther-inspired Nigeria. The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters have rendered much of earth unlivable. Only the lucky ones have escaped to space colonies in the...
Hawk
Patterson, James
Paper Book
In this dark dystopian tale, 17-year-old Hawk is growing up hard and fast in post-apocalyptic New York City--until a perilous destiny forces her to take flight and protect her home. Where is Maximum Ride? Ten years ago a girl with wings fought...
Hatchet
Paulsen, Gary
Paper Book
There was a wild crashing sound, a ripping of metal, and the plane blew through the trees, out over the water and down, down to slam into the lake . . . Brian is a city boy. Not used to living rough. Until his plane crash-lands in the Canadian wilderness. All he has is a...
Welcome to New York Alyssa
Powell, Sarah (New Zealand author)
Paper Book
16 year-old combat-trained Alyssa goes to New York on a mission to discover what is really going on in the city, that is isolated in a continuous anarchy.

New Zealand author

The rosewood hunt
Reed, Mackenzie
Paper Book
Irresistible intrigue, captivating suspense, a swoony friends-to-rivals-to-lovers romance, and heartbreaking betrayal drive this thrilling debut novel that is perfect for fans of The Inheritance Games and Knives Out. Lily Rosewood has lived with her grandmother since her dad...
Boy Soldier
Rigby, Robert
Ebook
Gripping, action-packed SAS thriller from the best-selling author of BRAVO TWO ZERO. Ideal for adventure-seeking readers. Danny Watts's grandfather, Fergus, was a traitor. One of the worst sort. An SAS explosives expert who betrayed his country and his Regiment for money. Drug...
Siege
Ryan, Chris
Paper Book
From the bestselling author of STRIKE BACK, Chris Ryan returns with a new action-packed series. Tough enough? Smart enough? Max will require all his skills just to stay alive as a Special Forces Cadet...
I must betray you
Sepetys, Ruta
Paper Book
#1 New York Times Bestseller and winner of the Carnegie Medal! A gut-wrenching, startling historical thriller about communist Romania and the citizen spy network that devastated a nation, from the #1 New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of Salt to...
Dry
Shusterman, Neal
Paper Book
When the California drought escalates to catastrophic proportions, one teen is forced to make life and death decisions for her family in this harrowing story of survival from New York Times bestselling author Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman. The drought--or the Tap...
The outlaws Scarlett & Browne : being an account of their daring exploits and audacious crimes
Stroud, Jonathan
Paper Book
Cuz
Van der Laarse, Liz
Paper Book
River is offered the chance to crew on his uncle's trawler - a coastal trip to get a new engine. He finds his cousin Huia annoying - she's all about Maoritanga while he can't even speak the language. When an accident leaves the two cousins stranded on the coast of Fiordland they must work together...

New Zealand author

Clementine. Book one
Walden, Tillie
Paper Book
A 2022 Junior Library Guild Selection! Book Riot "12 Best Graphic Novels and Comics of 2022" List IGN "Best Comic Book Series or Graphic Novel of 2022" Nominee "Tillie Walden is the future. Her boldly authentic voice brings new heights to the world of The...
Code name Verity
Wein, Elizabeth.
Paper Book
Only in wartime could a stalwart lass from Manchester rub shoulders with a Scottish aristocrat; one a pilot, the other a special operations executive. But when a vital mission goes wrong, one of the friends has to bail out of a faulty plane over France. She is captured by the Gestapo and...
Bite risk
Wills, S. J. (Children's author)
Paper Book
When everyone's a vicious beast, it's hard to spot the monsters . . .  Beware of the Turned in the first book in a blockbuster teen horror for fans of Skulduggery Pleasant and Stranger Things. 'A riotously absorbing horror...
Fable
Young, Adrienne
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING SERIES A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB YA PICK Filled with all of the action, emotion, and lyrical writing that brought readers to Sky in the Deep, New York Times bestselling author Adrienne Young...
Boy Nobody : a novel
Zadoff, Allen.
Paper Book
They needed the perfect assassin. Boy Nobody is the perennial new kid in school, the one few notice and nobody thinks much about. He shows up in a new high school in a new town under a new name, makes a few friends, and doesn't stay long. Just long enough for someone in his...
When we are invisible
Zorn, Claire
Paper Book
Instinct has kept us alive so far. It's like a compass and I tune in to the needle often- trust/don't trust, run/stay . . . I can't read the needle right now. The warmth of the room is clouding my judgment. In the midst of a nuclear winter, Lucy, Fin and Max flee the chaos of...

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