Friday, April 8, 2016

Audio Review-- Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School #1) by Gail Carriger


Floating schools, mechanimals (omg I want!), vampires and werewolves and highwaymen. How to curtsy, poison guests, and spying lessons. I mean. This is what everyone learns at finishing school...right? Heh

Alright so the quick of it is that Sophronia has been sent off to finishing school in hopes of becoming a Lady. Little does her mama know that this finishing school is quite unique and Sophronia will soon be on all kinds of adventures including solving the mystery of a missing prototype and all matter of curious happenings.

I enjoyed Sophronia. She's clever and funny and it was fun seeing her exploring both the school and meeting different people--teachers, students and the sooties down below who keep the ship running. She's really rather curious and can get herself in some interesting predicaments but always manages to figure things out. She's quite the intelligencer in training!
“Very well, Miss Temminnick. Tell me a little about yourself. Are you well-educated?”

Sophronia considered this question seriously. “I don’t believe so.”

“Excellent. Ignorance is most undervalued in a student. And have you killed anyone recently?”

Sophronia blinked. “Pardon?”

“Oh, you know, a knife to the neck, or perhaps a cleverly noosed cravat?”

Sophronia said only, “Not my preferred diversion.”

“Oh, dear, how disappointing. Well, don’t you fret. We shall soon find you some useful hobby.” 
There's no romance to speak of but inklings of a first romance with Soap who is one of the sooties. I totally adored him and his guys.

Add in a little drama and action as Sophronia and friends try to figure out the ins and outs of the finishing school, the mystery of the prototype and dealing with other girls at the 'finishing school' and it was just a good time.




The narration was fantastic. Moira Quirk brought a magical aire to Sophronia and her classmates and really made for an exciting experience. The accents were lovely and the characters easy to tell apart. It was easy to get lost in the world that Quirk brought to life.
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.

  
   
*covers link to Amazon

Challenges: Pick Your Genre (historical) | New to You (series) | Goodreads

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