Etiquette & Espionage
Author: Gail Carriger
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: Feb. 5, 2013
Pages: 307
Series: Finishing School, book the first
Source: ARC for review, purchased audiobook
Read By: Moira Quirk
Audiobook Publisher: Hachette Audio
Length: 8 hours, 55 minutes
About the Book: 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.
My Thoughts: When can I have more? Seriously. I had so, so, so much fun listening to this one! I actually woke up the next day and thought, “Yay! More Etiquette & Espionage!” only to remember that I had finished listening to the book in one day! That never happens! The story and the narration were just too good to stop!
Etiquette & Espionage was just so clever and witty and everything I wanted it to be. I loved learning more about the differences in the world it’s set in (steampunk fun!) Sophronia is a delightful character and it was a pleasure to get to know her. Yay for girls challenging the gender mold! I actually enjoyed learning more about all the characters. The other “debuts” (girls in the same class as Sophronia at Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality) are such a fun and varied lot. And the sooties! Loved them.
Throw in some supernatural beings, a bit of mystery, a bit of adventure and you have a book I could not get enough of. Curtsies & Conspiracies cannot come soon enough.
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