Book Review: Curtsies & Conspiracies

Curtsies & Conspiracies (Finishing School #2)
Gail Carriger

Release Date: November 5, 2013

Book Description:
Does one need four fully grown foxgloves for decorating a dinner table for six guests? Or is it six foxgloves to kill four fully grown guests?

Sophronia's first year at Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality has certainly been rousing! For one thing, finishing school is training her to be a spy (won't Mumsy be surprised?). Furthermore, Sophronia got mixed up in an intrigue over a stolen device and had a cheese pie thrown at her in a most horrid display of poor manners.

Now, as she sneaks around the dirigible school, eavesdropping on the teachers' quarters and making clandestine climbs to the ship's boiler room, she learns that there may be more to a school trip to London than is apparent at first. A conspiracy is afoot--one with dire implications for both supernaturals and humans. Sophronia must rely on her training to discover who is behind the dangerous plot-and survive the London Season with a full dance card.

In this sequel to bestselling author Gail Carriger's YA debut Etiquette & Espionage, class is back in session with more petticoats and poison, tea trays and treason. Gail's distinctive voice, signature humor, and lush steampunk setting are sure to be the height of fashion this season.

Amazon US | Goodreads

Review:
The Finishing School series is heating up my must read list with a delightful follow-up novel! Curtsies & Conspiracies is full of adventures, secrets, mischievous characters, and lessons in etiquette, espionage and most importantly – friendship. So, if you haven’t started on this series yet – you are definitely missing out!

Around the Web #7

Gail Carriger
Gail Carriger’s novel, Soulless turned four on Tuesday, October 1! If you haven’t read Soulless (Parasol Protectorate #1) – you are missing out! Gail writes fabulous books, with some amazing characters – both Alexia and Lord Conall Maccon make my list of top favorites. [Check out my review here].

Soulless Turns 4 Today
October 1, 2009 a silly little book hit the market. ~ Link

Book Review: Etiquette & Espionage

Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School #1)

Gail Carriger

Release Date: February 5, 2013

Book Description:

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. Temminick 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.

Set in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate, this YA series debut is filled with all the saucy adventure and droll humor Gail Carriger's legions of fans have come to adore.

Amazon US | Goodreads

Review:

A great new adventure!

As Marie Lu, author of the Legend trilogy proclaims (on the book’s dust jacket), “It is the perfect steampunk version of Harry Potter,” and I couldn’t agree more. Filled with a very colorful, whimsical, steampunk world, familiar to the readers of The Parasol Protectorate series, with addition of new characters, and glimpses of the once familiar ones – Etiquette & Espionage is a delightful first book.

Book Review: Timeless

Timeless (The Parasol Protectorate #5)
Gail Carriger

Release Date: March 1, 2012

Book Description:
Alexia Tarabotti, Lady Maccon, has settled into domestic bliss. Of course, being Alexia, such bliss involves integrating werewolves into London High society, living in a vampire's second best closet, and coping with a precocious toddler who is prone to turning supernatural willy-nilly. Even Ivy Tunstell's acting troupe's latest play, disastrous to say the least, cannot put a damper on Alexia's enjoyment of her new London lifestyle.

Until, that is, she receives a summons from Alexandria that cannot be ignored. With husband, child, and Tunstells in tow, Alexia boards a steamer to cross the Mediterranean. But Egypt may hold more mysteries than even the indomitable Lady Maccon can handle. What does the vampire Queen of the Alexandria Hive really want from her? Why is the God-Breaker Plague suddenly expanding? And how has Ivy Tunstell suddenly become the most popular actress in all the British Empire?

Amazon US | Goodreads

Review:
As the last novel in The Parasol Protectorate series draws to an end it is my sad realization of how much I would miss these characters I have grown to love.

Indeed, The Parasol Protectorate is a good first foray into the world of steampunk. As a new reader of the said genre I could not have asked for a more entertaining series to wet my appetite. Gail Carriger’s ability to transport the reader into her amazing world is enticing and entertaining to say the least. Ms. Carriger combines many genres within this series and creates a very colorful picture that certainly leaves many readers craving more. There are many aspects that should appeal to the wide range of readers, as I myself, have stumbled upon the series looking to continue my exploration into historical paranormal romance I found so entertaining in my past reads, but there is so much more in Carriger’s world. Here we find a feisty, smart and practical heroine – Alexia, a new paranormal being of Carriger’s design – a soulless. The colorful world set in alternate Victorian England, the comedy of manners, the wittiness and quirkiness of writing style, some romance and mystery, mixed with the steampunk elements all come together to create something totally new, that certainly left me desperately looking for the next chapter to come, but alas it was the last.