Review: CURTSIES & CONSPIRACIES by Gail Carriger (Little, Brown and Company, 2013)

From Amazon: 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 field 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 bestselling sequel to New York Times bestselling 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.

Audience: Young Adult
Genre: Historical Science Fiction & Fantasy, Steampunk
Length: 320 pgs

Rating: 5

Review: I adore Carriger's voice, the characters, the Victorian-ness of it all. Sophronia is just fantastic, and I just adore her BFF Dimity more and more. I read so quickly and every time I had to put it down, I couldn't wait to get back into it. I loved seeing Sophronia's arc continue and show her becoming a strong young women, but she still has slip-ups and mistakes she needs to take care of. I had one tiny sticking point--early in the novel the teachers pit Sophornia's schoolmates against her, and when they all stop talking to her, Sophronia accepts it without even trying to convince Dimity to be on her side. She just took it in stride, which was necessary for plot movement, but was not believable. Overall I loved it and can't wait to read the third book in the series.

Content: 

Sex - 1 (Sidheag admits to seeing men/werewolves naked when they transform and describes in somewhat polite terms how unimpressive they are.)

Language - 0

Violence - 2 (There are fights and blood and such, but it's all handled very nicely.)

Overall rating - PG-14 (Only because of the above discussion of naked men--everything thing else is PG)

Source: Review copy via NetGalley

Try this. Want a historical with a quirky fun voice? Read Rules of Murder by Julianna Deering.