Monday, July 8, 2013

Etiquette and Espionage (Finishing School #1) by Gail Carriger

I was so excited to find this on the shelf at my local library!  I love Gail Carriger's work and I have been waiting for her Young Adult series to come out!  Check out the cover and the Goodreads blurb:

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. Temminick 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 they 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 Carriger's legions of fans have come to adore.

This book actually serves as a kind of prequel to the Parasol protectorate series.  There are a handful of characters from those books here... only younger.  It's in no way required reading for the adult series but it is fun to see the characters before they were grown.  I loved this book because it reminded me of all the things that I love about Gail Carriger's writing.  The books have this tone that is so prim and serious but so ridiculous at the same time.  It's amazing.  I love Sophoronia as a character as well.  She is not a typical girl of her time period.  She likes reading, science and engineering.  She wants to solve problems and find out how things work.  She's a lovely character.  The other girls that she spends time with at the school are also great because they are each so different and unique.  I liked the idea of the boys version of the school as well.  A school for evil geniuses is pretty great.  I can't wait to see what other shenanigans the Pistons get up to.  All in all, I adored this book.

Click here to add Etiquette and Espionage to your Goodreads.  You can click here to find the Parasol Protectorate series and here for the upcoming Parasol Protectorate Abroad Series.  The second Finishing School novel, Curtsies and Conspiracies is due out in November so pre-order now!  Everything she writes is GOLD!  Remember, you can keep up to date with Ms. Carriger on her BLOG and follow her on Twitter. Make sure you check out her blog because she has TONS of information on Steampunkery!! I could spend DAYS looking through it all! Love it!  I give this book 5 Fairies for an amazing read that kept me laughing and reading for HOURS!


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