Showing posts with label Finishing School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Finishing School. Show all posts

Thursday, 11 December 2014

Waistcoats & Weaponry by Gail Carriger

Waistcoats & Weaponry (2014) (Orbit)
Gail Carriger
Grade: A
Genre: steampunk / young adult
Source: own
Finishing School: (1) Etiquette & Espionage, (2) Curtsies & Conspiracies, (3) Waistcoats & Weaponry
Young adult RBC 2014: A book set in another world 

At Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality, Sophronia Temminick and her friends are trying to finish their education in espionage to the best of their abilities (i.e. by flaunting the rules as much as possible), but school isn’t quite the same as it was. After an experiment gone wrong, their vampire teacher Professor Braithwope has gone a little loopy in the head, Sophronia’s friend and resident scientific and technology whiz Vieve has sneaked off under the guise of a boy to get her own education at Bunson’s School for Evil Geniuses, and despite the fact that they’ve yet to learn the fine art of seduction techniques, Sophronia continues to receive (not wholly unwanted) advances from two wholly unsuitable suitors: Lord Felix Mersey, beautiful peer but unforgiveably, son of a Pickleman, and Soap, sweet sootie from the Academy’s engine room. Fortunately, Sophronia has now found her deadly weapon of choice: the steel-tipped fan and is eager to get as much practice as she can – including thinking of new places to hide one about her person.


Sunday, 23 November 2014

Curtsies & Conspiracies by Gail Carriger

Curtsies & Conspiracies (2013) (Orbit)
Gail Carriger
Grade: A
Genre: steampunk / young adult
Source: own
Finishing School: (1) Etiquette & Espionage, (2) Curtsies & Conspiracies, (3) Waistcoats & Weaponry
Young adult RBC 2014: A book set in the past 

This is a finishing school like no other. Based in a floating dirigible above the Yorkshire Moors, girls at Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality don’t just learn how to curtsey and host a dinner party correctly – they can do it while throwing a knife, casing a room for hidden clues and mixing a deadly concoction of potions to take out a troublesome enemy. That’s right: this is a Finishing Academy for young spies. Having settled in and made quite an impression on her teachers and fellow spies-in-training, Lady Sophronia finds herself on the receiving end of a collective mission to freeze her out, from girls she had considered her friend.