Friday, March 29, 2013

Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School, Book The First), by Gail Carriger



Synopsis:  It's one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It's quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to Finishing School.

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners--and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine's, young ladies learn to finish...everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but the also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage--in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year's education.

Set in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate, this YA series debut is filled with all the saucy adventure and droll humor Gail's legions of fans have come to adore. 

Thoughts: What a fun read! Not only is it a good story line, but for those of us who have read the Parasol Protectorate series, it provides back story for many of the characters we met there. It also introduces new characters to flesh out the plot. Victorian era clothing, werewolves, vampires, ghosts, spies, airships, mechanical dogs.....what more can you ask for?  :)


No comments: