Summer '17 Book 6

Finishing School: Book the First: Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

A week ago, I did not know this series of books existed. Thankfully, I have great friends and coworkers who think of me when a cool book comes to mind, and that was the case here. As a matter of fact, I ordered this series because a friend/coworker/former teacher of my daughter's tagged me in a post on Facebook that included a teaching guide for this. How can you not then check it out? If you're me, you can't.

The premise is pretty cool. It's a finishing school that teaches girls in the fine arts of espionage, conspiracy, and all things covert. There's an element of the supernatural, as one of the teachers is a vampire and another is a werewolf. There's also the whole steampunk feel to things too, what with the mechanimals, the fact that the school is dirigibles strapped together, and the mechanical guards/servants. Just really cool.

Ok, so Sophronia is the youngest daughter of a passel of children. Because she is not the oldest, she is often overlooked, or would be, except that she is accident prone and has an aptitude for the way devices work. One day her mother is meeting with a woman who thinks it would be a good idea to send Sophronia to finishing school. To get Sophronia out of her hair, her mother agrees. She meets another young lady, Dimity, and her brother, Pillover, on her way to the school. There's also one of the teachers with them.

On the way to the schools, they are accosted by flywaymen. As it turns out, the teacher wasn't really a teacher but another student named Monique, and the flywaymen were after her to get a prototype that she had. Monique refuses to give this prototype to the teachers, and is demoted from a senior to a debut student. Sophronia makes it her mission to find out why the prototype is so important and find the device itself to give to the proper authorities. Monique doesn't make this easy for her.

Along the way, Sophronia befriends a wide range of people who help her, and comes into her own. She may not be a master of the curtsy yet, but she is well on her way. It doesn't hurt that she has amazing critical thinking skills.

There are three more books in the series, and I am looking forward to what happens next.