Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School #1)

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 they 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.

   Etiquette & Espionage was my first Steampunk I’ve read; I love and want to read more Steampunk. This was different then what I thought it, I enjoyed it more than I thought too. I fell in love with this world and it characters. The only downside to this book was that it felt a little childish. So, other than that I liked how the school floats, how there’s werewolves and vampires; boy and girl school. The characters are quite different from each other’s. The types of classes & lessons that they take at this school aren’t too different like simple dance classes, while others are out there, like how to hide your weapon in your outfit. The pacing of this book is good for this plot, at first I thought this may be over packed with action but it was well balanced and written.
   Oddly, I don’t have a favorite character; usually I have one. Sophronia sneaks around a lot, this brought more of the school into the pages, more plots and secrets. I can’t wait to see what happens in the next book.