We’re thrilled to share the cover of Fran Wilde’s A Philosophy of Thieves, a high-tech adventure heist wrapped in a gaslamp fantasy—available September 30, 2025 from Erewhon Books.
The Canarviers are the premier performance thieves in New Washington, blending astonishing acrobatics, clever misdirection, and daring escapes to entertain their rich patrons. As King Canarvier has always told his children, their work is art. Who else could titillate audiences with illicit history lessons and tease them through the gaps in their much-prized security?
Now that they’re adults, King’s children feel their divisions more than their bonds. Roosa attends an exclusive finishing university, blending in so well she’s unsure where she belongs. Her brother Dax craves a chance to prove himself, stifling under his father’s caution.
Then King disappears.
With only days to buy mercy before their father is lost forever, Roo and Dax must compete in a high-stakes Grand Heist, pushing down their resentments to work together. Against a technocrat wagering more than he can lose, a security chief with a taste for pain, and a society beauty with secrets of her own, any misstep promises catastrophic ruin.
But Canarviers are artists. And they perform best when the pressure is on…
From the author, Fran Wilde:
One of the things I love most about this cover is how artist Steve Thomas presents the duality of the world—the future and the past, the sf elements in blue just outside the main action, the wealth-driven fantasy of the heist on the inside. The fact that everything’s in motion, and right on the edge of danger.
I drew everyone a bit of a cheat sheet for most (ahem) of the Easter eggs Steve managed to cram into this image (see below).I can’t wait to introduce you to my thieves, and the rest of this world.
Buy the Book
A Philosophy of Thieves
Fran Wilde won a 2015 Nebula Award for her first novel, Updraft; she completed the trilogy with Cloudbound and Horizon in 2017. Her debut middle-grade novel Riverland won a 2019 Nebula Award and was named an NPR Best Book of 2019. The middle-grade novel The Ship of Stolen Words appeared in 2021 and books in her Gemworld series with tordotcom have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, and Locus awards. Wilde’s short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, Tordotcom, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Uncanny Magazine, and multiple year’s best collections. Her nonfiction has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, Tordotcom, and elsewhere. The managing editor of The Sunday Morning Transport, Wilde holds an MFA in poetry and an MA in information architecture and interaction design. She teaches for Vermont College of Fine Arts and has been waiting her whole life to write a Mon Mothma story.
