Etiquette & Espionage

Booktrack Edition

By: Gail Carriger

Narrated by: Moira Quirk

Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's Summary

Etiquette & Espionage: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience!*

Booktrack editions are essentially a new genre of digital storytelling entertainment. Music and ambient audio are added to complement and enhance the audiobook experience. It is a synchronized movie-style soundtrack that complements the narration of existing audiobooks; the tempo and rhythm of the score harmonize with action, dialogue, and the characters' emotional arcs. 

Set in the same world as the New York Times best-selling Parasol Protectorate, this best-selling young adult steampunk series debut 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.

*Booktrack is an immersive format that pairs traditional audiobook narration to complementary music. The tempo and rhythm of the score are in perfect harmony with the action and characters throughout the audiobook. Gently playing in the background, the music never overpowers or distracts from the narration, so listeners can enjoy every minute. When you purchase this Booktrack edition, you receive the exact narration as the traditional audiobook available, with the addition of music throughout.

©2013 Gail Carriger (P)2017 Hachette Audio

Fantastic Original, Flawed Booktrack Edition

This is a review for the Booktrack edition only!

1) There are two editions of this audible title. Both have Moira Quirk as the narrator with the same recorded performance...the Booktrack edition adds an accompanying light musical score.

2) I have both editions. If you are looking for a fun and often-silly YA steampunk/vampires/werewolves story in the Parasol Protectorate universe, this is a sure pick. And Moira Quirk does all the voices wonderfully!

3) BUT, the Booktrack version has two flaws that recommend against this purchase. First, you will notice that the Booktrack file is 3 minutes shorter than the original. This is due to a horrible mistake of dropping 3 minutes of narration from the end of Chapter 2...a key scene showing how Sophronia rescues Monique!

4) Additionally, the Booktrack musical score seems to just be missing after Chapter 4....the rest of the file sounds identical to the original with no discernible score.

For these reasons I do not recommend this Booktrack version from Audible; purchase the original version instead.

Wonderfully Fun.

This series by Ms. Carriger is as good or better than her Parasol Protectorate series. I enjoyed it enough that I purchased more credits and got the other 3 books in the series available at this time.

Glad I stumbled upon this first in the Finishing School series on the Thanksgiving sale. I had purchased Prudence in the last sale and was less than impressed with that continuation of her Parasol Protectorate world.

Entertaining

Clever story; well delivered narration; worthless audio enhancement. Steampunk for girls but so cleverly satirical that even some boys might like it (eg a steam dog that poops ash).As with any first book, I will raise or lower my story evaluation based on whether there is anything more than cardboard characters in subsequent books. As a stand-alone, the book was entertaining enough.

Harry Potter school story, but with spies!

The first books I ready by Carriger were the Parasol Protectorate series, which I thought was amazing. This is definitely a change from that, but it still has a similar style of taking a story and painting it with Victorian England high society. It is the story of a girl off to finishing school, which ends up also being a spy school. The character development isn't amazing, but never feels lacking either. The pacing is perfect and never seems to drag or be to rushed. It really was well done and I definitely will be listening to the rest of the series!

thoroughly enjoyed this fun ya novel

I enjoyed the story and characters as well as the narrator. I plan on listening with my kids as it's adventurous and fun, particularly for girls.