Teen Tuesday

Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School Book the First) by Gail Carriger (Little Brown hardcover, 5 February 2013).

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia Temminick is not a proper young lady.  She'd much rather climb trees or take things apart to see how they work.  So of course she's apprehensive when she learns that she will be sent to Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing School for Young Ladies of Quality.  She's not the least bit interested being "finished", and ending up like her older sister Petunia who can think only of her coming out party.

Isn't this an amazing cover?

But when she arrives at the school (which is actually in a dirigible!) and learns that she'll be learning much more than how to be a proper lady, she's thrilled.  Who wouldn't be interested in classes like Music & Intelligence Gathering and Household Management & Proper Poisonings for Every Occasion?  

This story is set in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate series, though twenty-five years earlier. Suitable for even the youngest teens (there's no sex and little romance), it will still be enjoyed by older ones who appreciate strong, intelligent, capable female characters.  The tone is much lighter than that of the earlier series, and it's a quick and entertaining read.  

Three more books in the series are planned, but no indication yet of when the next one might appear.  Carriger has another Parasol Protectorate spin-off series planned, called the Parasol Protectorate Abroad, the first of which is due in the fall of 2013.


FTC Full Disclosure:  I purchased a copy of the book.