Sara Martinez is a hacker. She recently broke into the New York City foster care system to expose her foster parents as cheats and lawbreakers. However, instead of being hailed as a hero, Sara finds herself facing years in a juvenile detention facility and banned from using computers for the same stretch of time. Enter Mother, a British spy who not only gets Sara released from jail but also offers her a chance to make a home for herself within a secret MI6 agency.
Operating out of a base in Scotland, the City Spies are five kids from various parts of the world. When they’re not attending the local boarding school, they’re honing their unique skills, such as sleight of hand, breaking and entering, observation, and explosives. All of these allow them to go places in the world of espionage where adults can’t.
Before she knows what she’s doing, Sarah is heading to Paris for an international youth summit, hacking into a rival school’s computer to prevent them from winning a million euros, dangling thirty feet off the side of a building, and trying to stop a villain…all while navigating the complex dynamics of her new team.
No one said saving the world was easy…
The series
There’s something thrilling about watching a team come together—not just any team, but one made up of kids from around the world, each with a secret past and a very particular set of skills. City Spies taps into that energy with precision, turning the idea of elite espionage on its head and handing the mission over to the most unlikely agents: teenagers.
Read full series description
Set against the backdrop of real global cities and iconic landmarks, this middle-grade spy series doesn’t just serve up high-stakes missions—it pulls readers into a world where loyalty, quick thinking, and empathy are just as essential as hacking skills or parkour. At its heart, the series follows five young recruits, each rescued from difficult circumstances and trained by a mysterious MI6 agent known only as Mother. Together, they infiltrate elite boarding schools, decode encrypted secrets, and stop threats that adults can’t even see coming.
But beneath the clever gadgets and coded messages is something more powerful: a story about found family. These kids aren’t just learning how to be spies—they’re learning how to trust again, how to lean on one another, and how to rewrite the stories they were handed. The action is pulse-pounding, but it’s the moments between missions—the quiet camaraderie, the unexpected vulnerability—that give the series its emotional gravity.
With fast-paced plots grounded in real-world settings and just enough humor to offset the tension, this series hits the sweet spot for readers who crave adventure with depth. City Spies doesn’t just entertain—it invites readers to imagine themselves as brave, brilliant, and capable of changing the world.
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