Books › Etiquette & espionage (Finishing School #1)
Etiquette & espionage (Finishing School #1)
320 pages
A delightfully cheeky romp where corsets, curtsies, and poisoned tea are the ultimate weapons of choice.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like attending a highly exclusive, slightly dangerous tea party aboard a floating dirigible. It is a delightfully brisk and buoyant romp that wraps espionage and assassination in the velvet glove of Victorian etiquette. The narrative voice is arch and playful, winking at the reader as it subverts the rigid expectations of high society with clockwork gadgets and weaponized parasols. It is less about the grit of spy work and more about the joyful discovery of finding your people, especially if your people are as eccentric and dangerously competent as you are. Perfect for readers who love their steampunk adventures served with a side of wry humor, impeccable manners, and a healthy dose of female rebellion.
- Mood
- whimsical
- buoyant
- gaslamp-lit
- adventurous
- Tone
- wry
- playful
- arch
- cheeky
- polite
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- weaponized femininity · subverting societal expectations · found family of misfits · the absurdity of manners
- The writing
- The prose is bubbly and arch, dripping with faux-Victorian propriety and clever, tongue-in-cheek wordplay.
- The arc
- The protagonist moves from feeling like an awkward, unladylike disappointment to finding joyful belonging and deadly competence among a found family of eccentric peers.
- Who it's for
- Readers who delight in witty banter, steampunk aesthetics, and heroines who know how to conceal a throwing knife in a corset.
Content notes
- mild fantasy violence
- bullying
About the book
Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than in 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.
Description from Open Library.
Books like Etiquette & espionage (Finishing School #1)
See why they match
Waistcoats & weaponryGail CarrigerA delightful romp through a steampunk Victorian landscape where a properly thrown teacup is just as deadly as a dagger.
SoullessGail CarrigerA delightfully arch comedy of manners where strict Victorian etiquette clashes with supernatural chaos and crackling romantic tension.
Refining FelicityMarion ChesneyA frothy, fast-paced Regency romp full of drawing-room comedy and eccentric chaperones.
A curious beginningDeanna RaybournA spirited romp through Victorian England featuring a fiercely independent heroine, a grumpy natural historian, and a deadly mystery.
The Invisible LibraryGenevieve CogmanA witty, gaslamp-lit heist across alternate realities where books are the ultimate currency and magic bleeds into the cobblestones.
I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You (Gallagher Girls #1)Ally CarterA fizzy, delightful blend of high-stakes espionage and the utterly terrifying terrain of first love, wrapped in a cozy boarding school aesthetic.