Etiquette & Espionage

Finishing School, Book 1

By: Gail Carriger

Narrated by: Moira Quirk

Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

This young adult steampunk series debut set in the same world as the New York Times best-selling Parasol Protectorate is filled with all the saucy adventure and droll humor Gail Carriger's legions of fans have come to adore.

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.

©2013 Gail Carriger (P)2013 Hachette Audio

funny and entertaining

funny and entertaining story with great narrator who uses a good mixture of voices to bring the story to life

Quirk breathes life to Carriger's world

An engaging story, relatable main character, and fantastic world created by Carriger is brought to life by the voice talent of Moira Quirk. Top notch combination of story and story teller. I like how Carriger even pokes gentle and good natured fun at a group who sews gears with no purpose to their clothing, and commits a faux pas wearing evening dress before high tea.

Delightful

This book was delightful, and I loved the reading by the narrator. Moira Quirk writes a clever, fun, adventurous, and imaginative story that is entertaining. I just finished the first book and am downloading the next one. Good story, characters, pacing, and intrigue. This is my first book by this author, and I love her work. I'll read more in the future. Won't disappoint!

i love it

I read the whole thing in one and half day I totally recommend I know you love it as I do

great read

if you enjoyed the word created by Gail in her Soulless series, then this is just more to love.

Fun story, awesome wordplay, performed flawlessly!

Fantastic voicing by Moira Quirk. The characters came alive with their individual voices. Great story as well with clever subtle humor. Loved it!

Mischievous, Steam-punk Fun!

This was the most fun I've had listening to an audiobook in a long time!
It was entertaining historical fiction with a steampunk/supernatural bent, with a theme of girls behaving like boys and having adventures while at a school of both manners and intelligence training.

Quite a lot of wonderfully creative names, including my new favorite mechanical sausage dog (disguised as a ladies formal dress reticule, bound to be the latest fashion) : the adorable Bumbersnoot. The school is chock full of interesting characters, I loved the friendships that developed with Vièv and Soap especially. They were great company for fun and for break-ins to restricted areas. I think they handled themselves wonderfully, for 13-year-olds, in a race to save the day and to recover a piece of highly sought after technology. It was a well done plot, unfolding piece by piece in the puzzle until the "final showdown" for all the marbles.

I was happy for Sophronia to have found comrades in mischief and a productive outlet for her talents, no matter what her mother thinks of them. =P

Narration was great - several varied voices for dialogue, all appropriately gendered with proper dialects. Only a few minor instances of voice mix-ups, but the speaker was known from context, so did not present a problem.

From a proper curtsy and quadrille to the finer points of poison and secret message passing, I think I shall like to read more in the series, I can't imagine what new escapades may be in store aboard the giant airship campus. Brilliant writing, a lot of fun, even if I'm not part the target audience -teenage girls. I laughed out loud often (awkward on public transportation) and didn't want to put it down.

Cute Young Adult Story

I enjoyed listening to this, but it is a little juvenile for me. It is along the lines of Harry Potter, but not as imaginative. Still a cute story with a strong little girl as protagonist. Her mother enrolls her in an Etiquette school which turns out to be a school training the young lady into a magical masterpiece.

Amazing

Would you listen to Etiquette & Espionage again? Why?

Yes I would listen to this book again, it engages you at the very beginning

Who was your favorite character and why?

All of the Charactors are my favorite.

Have you listened to any of Moira Quirk’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have not but I'm wanting to find other books performed by her.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes 100% yes!!

Awesome new series for me!!

I'm so in love with this new to me series! I had to go buy the whole series like one chapter in. So fun!