etiquette & espionage

There’s something about steampunk that hooks me time after time.  It’s fantasy set in an alternate Victorian Era, so you have the feeling and trappings of historical fiction.  It’s also speculative (sci-fi or fantasy or a mix of the two), with a sense of hope about what technology would/could do to make society different.  In the hands of young adult authors, steampunk is also often fun and adventurous.  I was certain that I’d like Gail Carriger’s first YA steampunk novel (she wrote the adult Parasol Protectorate series, which started with Soulless), and I wasn’t disappointed.

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 the bane of her mother's existence. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper etiquette at tea—and god forbid anyone see her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. She enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But little do Sophronia or her mother know that this is a school where ingenious young girls learn to finish, all right—but it's a different kind of finishing. Mademoiselle Geraldine's certainly trains young ladies in the finer arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but also in the other kinds of finishing: the fine arts of death, diversion, deceit, espionage, and the modern weaponries. Sophronia and her friends are going to have a rousing first year at school.

Sophronia is a tomboy-ish younger sister who throws her mother into fits.  She simply doesn’t care that she’s not supposed to be interested in running and jumping and listening at doors.  After all, it’s natural to her, and she can’t see a good reason to start being boring like her elder sister.  However, her mother doesn’t agree, and sends her off to a finishing school to reform her temperament and behavior.  And that’s when things start to get very interesting.

Sophronia has a personality, if you know what I mean, and she’s the life of the book.  Sophronia makes Etiquette & Espionage worth reading because her inquisitiveness, cunning and dismissal of scruples lead to one scrape after another.  Sophronia isn’t attending an ordinary school (although there are the requisite moments of school chum bonding and teaming up to outwit teachers), after all – she’s also learning the fine arts of espionage and murder.  At first she’s bemused and mystified, and later she embraces her lessons with verve.  Her energy and penchant for disregarding the social niceties (while everyone around her is obsessed with them) makes for entertaining reading and hijinks galore.

While this book won’t best please those YA readers who have come to expect romance as a major element of their reading, it will satisfy those with an eye for a unique setting, a soft spot for clever characters, and anyone who has secretly wanted to become a spy at some point in their lives.  The girls at Madmoiselle Geraldine’s learn about poison, machinery, making enemies and friends, and learn to curtsy at the same time.  It’s a bit of a comedy of manners, but a dashing one, and seeds are planted for continuing story arcs.  The formula = mystery + adventure.

Recommended for: fans of YA steampunk (think Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan or Kady Cross’ The Girl in the Steel Corset), and anyone waiting for their entrance letter to a school of magic or espionage.

waiting on wednesday (53)

Today I’m participating in "Waiting On" Wednesday, a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. Its purpose is to spotlight upcoming book releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

Gail Carriger started off by writing engaging steampunk for adults.  Her novel Soulless, the first of the Parasol Protectorate series, was a hoot and a half.  Carriger is following up that success with a steampunk series for the young adult audience.  The first book, Etiquette & Espionage, introduced a school on a dirigible, a mystery, and many moments of hilarity.  I'll review it later today, as part of Girls in Steampunk Week.  The good news is that Carriger is continuing on, and the second book in the Finishing School series comes out later this year.  Curtsies & Conspiracies will be released on November 5th, 2013 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (Hachette).

Does one need four fully grown foxgloves for decorating a dinner table for six guests? Or is it six foxgloves to kill four fully grown guests?

Sophronia's first year at Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality has certainly been rousing! For one thing, finishing school is training her to be a spy (won't Mumsy be surprised?). Furthermore, Sophronia got mixed up in an intrigue over a stolen device and had a cheese pie thrown at her in a most horrid display of poor manners.

Now, as she sneaks around the dirigible school, eavesdropping on the teachers' quarters and making clandestine climbs to the ship's boiler room, she learns that there may be more to a school trip to London than is apparent at first. A conspiracy is afoot--one with dire implications for both supernaturals and humans. Sophronia must rely on her training to discover who is behind the dangerous plot-and survive the London Season with a full dance card. 

In this sequel to bestselling author Gail Carriger's YA debut Etiquette & Espionage, class is back in session with more petticoats and poison, tea trays and treason. Gail's distinctive voice, signature humor, and lush steampunk setting are sure to be the height of fashion this season.

What books are you waiting on?
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waiting on wednesday (33)

I’m participating today in "Waiting On" Wednesday. It is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, and its purpose is to spotlight eagerly anticipated upcoming releases.

It’s been years now, and I’m not anywhere close to being ‘over’ steampunk.  The aesthetic lends itself to adventure, to invention, and apparently to the hands of some of the best writers around.  One of the most popular steampunk authors is Gail Carriger, whose novel Soulless I lovedLOVEDloved.  Well, now she’s doing all of her fans the enormous favor of writing a YA series.  I don’t know when I’ve heard such wonderful news – this is great for the genre, great for books, and I can tell, just from the cover and description (despite a lack of obvious steampunk), that it’ll be rollicking good fun.  Plus, the name Sophronia?  It can only bode well.  Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger will be published by Little Brown (Hachette), and releases on February 5th, 2013.

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 the bane of her mother's existence. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper etiquette at tea—and god forbid anyone see her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. She enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But little do Sophronia or her mother know that this is a school where ingenious young girls learn to finish, all right—but it's a different kind of finishing. Mademoiselle Geraldine's certainly trains young ladies in the finer arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but also in the other kinds of finishing: the fine arts of death, diversion, deceit, espionage, and the modern weaponries. Sophronia and her friends are going to have a rousing first year at school.

What books are you waiting on?