Etiquette and Espionage

This is the first in Gail Carriger's "Finishing School" series for young adults...like her adult "Parasol Protectorate" series for adults in that it's the same setting, only 25 years earlier, i.e., Victorian England, steampunk society where werewolves and vampires are accepted--if not universally admired--segments of high society. (See previous reviews for Soulless, Timeless, Changeless, Blameless, Heartless). Our protagonist is Sophronia Angelina Temminnick, the youngest daughter of a landed country family, who is too much of a tomboy, too curious about how things work, and, hence too troublesome for her mother's taste. At the suggestion of one of Mrs. Temminnick's close acquaintances, Mrs. Barnaclegoose (Carriger loves goofing with names), Sophronia is to be sent off to Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality. What Mrs. Temminnick does not know, and Sophronia only gradually finds out, is that this is a very different kind of finishing school--one that teaches deadly skills with a knife as well as mastering the perfect curtsy or fluttering one's eyelashes to manipulative ends. To top it off,  the finishing school floats above the moors in an elaborate contrivance of joined dirigibles. Sophronia, though not a legacy recruit, takes to her lessons with relish and manages to learn a few things that are definitely NOT part of the curriculum. Like climbing around the outside of the school (high above the ground) in order to skirt the alarmed mechanicals and get to the boiler room, where she meets the "sooties" and procurs coal supplies for her not-exactly-permitted pet mechanimal (which resembes a dachsund run by a miniatures boiler).  This is totally enjoyable for those who like this genre and not so "young" that adult won't be challenged to figure out what's going on. Highly recommended.