Waistcoats & Weaponry by Gail Carriger {audiobook review}

Waistcoats & Weaponry
by Gail Carriger
♦publisher: Little Brown BYR
♦release date: November 4th, 2014
♦hardcover, 298 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦series: Finishing School, book 3
  review of book 1: Etiquette & Espionage
  review of book 2: Curtsies & Conspiracies
♦source: purchased book, audiobook from library

Sophronia continues her second year at finishing school in style—with a steel-bladed fan secreted in the folds of her ball gown, of course. Such a fashionable choice of weapon comes in handy when Sophronia, her best friend Dimity, sweet sootie Soap, and the charming Lord Felix Mersey stowaway on a train to return their classmate Sidheag to her werewolf pack in Scotland. 

No one suspected what—or who—they would find aboard that suspiciously empty train. Sophronia uncovers a plot that threatens to throw all of London into chaos and she must decide where her loyalties lie, once and for all.

Review: This series just continues to be fabulous and absolutely the most fun of any steampunk adventure I’ve ever read. For this third installment, I decided to try out the audiobook and I have no regrets! Narrator Moira Quirk really brought this story to life and did a fantastic job relating the fast pace of the plot as well as sliding impressively from one voice and accent to the other. 

Sophronia and friends are back in action. I have come to really adore all of these characters, each with so much individuality, even her little reticule mechanimal dog sometimes steals the show with his personality! Every character is layered and adds so much to the story. This time the plot is very much centered around Sidheag and her family of werewolves, and it was great to get a dose of backstory on her, and ultimately on Felix and his family as well! 

Despite my continued love of this series, I did have a few issues this time around. Firstly, as Sophronia gets older the love triangle with Soap and Felix gets more prevalent. Generally love triangles are not deal breakers for me, but she was just so swoony and undecisive over both of them, it got a little tiresome after a while. Secondly, while the plot was full of excitement and held my attention completely without fail, this installment felt the most like a segue between books than any of the others. Still, a fun and excitement-filled adventure with all the cool weapons, the clever rescue plans, the loyal friendships...so much to love about this series and I can’t wait to dive into book 4!

One final note: THE FAN. I need the fan, people. This year, Sophronia learns to fight with a bladed metal fan (as you can see on the cover) and it lends to some really beautifully written fight sequences. While listening to the audio was an great experience, what I wouldn’t give to see this wild steampunk adventure series made into movies! They would be so beautiful! 

Find Gail Carriger online: Website  •  Twitter  •  Facebook

Purchase Waistcoats  & Weaponry:  Indiebound  •  BookDepository  •  Amazon

Curtsies & Conspiracies: Event Recap & Signed Series Giveaway!

Recently I was lucky enough to attend a great event at Copperfields Books

in Petaluma, CA for author Gail Carriger, on tour to present Curtsies and Conspiracies to the world!  First I want to tell you all, if this author comes anywhere near your town, definitely don’t miss the chance to see her! She is such a great author to meet and hear speak about her writing.  She loves to entertain and it shows.  The second she walks into the room, she makes an impact with her adorable outfits (I’ve actually met her twice and both times she was dress to the nines in such chic retro dresses!)   Plus her books have a huge dedicated fan base, so you’ll often spot a few event-goers in full steampunk costumes!

The event was kicked off with pizza and red vines and we were all treated to the book’s awesome trailer played on a very antique looking movie projector screen.  Gail went on to tell a little bit about Cursties & Conspiracies and then opened the floor for questions.   She let us in on lots of fun facts and talked about her writerly ways.  When asked the classic “where do you get your ideas from” question (I think I’ve heard this question at every author event I’ve ever attended) she had the whole room laughing with her answer:  “My ass. If I sit on it long enough the stories ideas will come!”  Then she got serious and told us how small ideas grow and grow with a lot of “what if’s” and how worlds are built from being shaped around smaller details and what she called “thought experiments”.  I personally love the steampunk worlds she has created so it was fascinating to hear about her creative process.  She also mentioned that she loves Tamara Pierce---her desert island book is The Forgotten Beast of Eld---but that she doesn’t read anything but non-fiction when she’s writing.

She shared so much great insight on her books!  If you happen to be a fan of her adult series, The Parasol Protectorate, apparently the Finishing School is about the same world several years earlier.   A few characters from one can be spotted in the other, and she had so much fun dropping in little “cookies” for readers of both series to pick up on.   She definitely made me want to go back and read her first series!  Especially when she said that one setting in her third book, Blameless, is in Egypt and was her first excavation site when she was an archeologist!  I’m a sucker for little details like that!

When asked about the writing style and the language in the books, she answered that they are a fun gentle parody of Victorian times and language.  I heartily agreed with that---I love the liveliness of her writing and how readable and hilarious it all is for an era that is known for its propriety and manners.

There are two more books to come in the Finishing School series! They will be Waistcoats & Weaponry in 2014 and Manner & Mutiny in 2015.  Also, another adult series in this same world is in the works based on one of the characters from the Parasol Protectorate! Prudence will be out October 2015 (Gail says it must face a few rewrites because it’s just not funny enough yet!)


Definitely a fantastic author to see if you ever get the chance.  But wait…see what Gail is doing right here?? She is signing gorgeous copies of her book.  And guess what?  I got two extra signed copies for one lucky winner!!

 Enter below to win a signed paperback of Etiquette & Espionage and a signed ARC of Curtsies & Conspiracies!!

•US mailing addresses only
•Must be 13 or older
•Ends 12/26/13

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Becky's View: Curtsies & Conspiracies by Gail Carriger

Curtsies & Conspiracies by Gail Carriger
♦publisher: Little, Brown
♦release date: November 5th, 2013
♦hardcover, 320 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦series: Finishing School, book 2
  review of book 1, Etiquette & Espionage
♦source: from trade

Does one need four fully grown foxgloves for decorating a dinner table for six guests? Or is it six foxgloves to kill four fully grown guests?

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 school 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 sequel to bestselling author Gail Carriger's YA debut 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.

Review: It’s so easy to fall back into Gail Carriger’s cool steampunk world of espionage and tea time, mechanimals and fancy ball gowns.  In Curtsies and Conspiracies, Sophronia is knee deep into all the intrigue again, sneaking around their floating airship finishing school, deftly using her training as an intelligencer to discover the purpose of a mysterious gadget, what it has to do with the groundbreaking airship flight into the aethersphere, and why someone would be trying to kidnap her best friends, Dimity and Pillover. 

This series is just a joy to read. Carriger infuses her storytelling and her characters with such great humor and gusto.  Each one is memorable, every single one, including most of the teachers.  Even with almost a year between this book and the last, the characters still felt familiar like old friends.  Not only that, but each book has it’s own story arc, so I think someone coming into the series at book two would catch on easily enough to really enjoy it on its own .

There are some new faces this time around, my favorite being Felix, a slightly goth but utterly charming and funny boy.  All the characters are definitely a bit more grown up this year---Sophronia is 15 now---and her sweet friendship with Soap is evolving in adorable and awkward ways. With him, she faces the age old dilemma of not wanting to lose a great friendship by letting it grow into something else.   With the appearance of Felix, there is a little bit of a triangle forming, so we’ll see where that goes!  Vieve, just as much of a firecracker as ever, is actually a big part of the story this time around, as her and Sophronia strike a deal to finagle her way into the boy’s school for evil geniuses.  This leads to plenty of madcap adventure and espionage.  

Lots going on in this one---and I loved the chaotic and humorous climax scene, it definitely made me think of an old silent movie.  With all the gowns and gadgets and manners and creatures; this whole steampunk world is so fully imagined and visual.  If there is one series that I would love to see brought to life in a movie, even just for the imagery alone, this is it.   It would be gorgeous! 

Two more books are still to come in this series. Waistcoats and Weaponry and Manners and Mutiny.  These will both definitely be on my must –read list in 2014 and 2015!

Find Gail Carriger online: Website  •  Twitter  •  Facebook

Purchase Etiquette & Espionage:  Amazon  •  BookDepository.com  •  Indiebound 

Trailer of awesome!

 

Becky's View: Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger
♦publisher: Little, Brown BYR
♦release date: February 5th, 2013
♦hardcover, 307 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦series: Finishing School, book 1
♦source: ALA

It's one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It's quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to Finishing School.

Sophronia Temminnick at 14 is a great trial more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners -- and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Her poor mother, desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady, enrolls the lively tomboy in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But 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.

Review: Etiquette & Espionage was exactly what I went in hoping it would be and even surprised me in a few ways!  Such a fun, incredibly well done steampunk adventure!  You can tell at once that this is what Gail Carriger does, she has taken the skill of creating steampunk worlds and honed it into a perfectly refined artform.   This is my first dip into her fantastic worlds but it absolutely won't be my last---I'll be sticking with this series for as long as it rides out and probably seeking out her adult Steampunk titles as well!

As I did suspect from the description, this one reads fairly young; it almost borderlines between middle grade and young adult. This was fine with me as I love both genres.  While Sophronia is 14, the propriety of Victorian England, her own rambunctious attitude, and her love of adventure and climbing gave her an air of childlike innocence.  As for love, there is more of a hint of shy attraction rather than a full blown romance, but the boy, Soap, is such a charmer---I hope this series sees them into their later teen years to see if anything blossoms between them! All of the characters were such fun to read: the weak-kneed and very girly Dimity, her bookish brother Pillover, the snobby and conniving Monique, small but mighty Vieve, all the wildly interesting teachers at the school, and so many more!

What surprised me the most, because there was no mention of them in the description, was the  vampires and werewolves and other paranormals! It's been a while since I've read any vamps and weres...and even longer since I've enjoyed reading about them so much!  The story itself captures your curiousity from the get-go, full of twists and turns and intrigue as Sophronia races to find out the whereabouts of a mysterious prototype and why exactly everyone is so desperate to get their hands on it.

The curtsy! OH how I wish this would be made into a movie just so I can see Sophronia's horrendous curtsy.  The way every person she curtsied to blanched at the horror of her lack of curtsy skills just made me chuckle every time.  So much great imagery brought this story completely to life, the whimsical floating school, the haughty mechanical servants, the sweet and playful mechanimal that Sophronia adopts, flywaymen and picklemen, and their exciting mid-air attacks.  The girls are just learning the art of "finishing" in this first book, but I can't wait to get more into the intrigue and danger of seeing their skills in action!

I highly recommend this fun and adventurous story!

Find Gail Carriger online: Website  •  Twitter  •  Facebook

Purchase Etiquette & Espionage:  Amazon  •  BN.com  •  BookDepository  •  Indiebound

Cover Story: Four from a few of my favorites!

A few of my favorite authors revealed new covers this past week! Take a look:

Cold Spell by Jackson Pearce
Jackson Pearce is back with another reimagined fairytale!
This time she works her magic on The Snow Queen.

Curtsies & Conspiracies by Gail Carriger

Book 2 in her Finishing School series! These books have got be some of my favorite covers! 

Inheritance by Malinda Lo
The second book to her Adaptation series! If you look on Lo's blog there is a really cool behind-the-scenes look at making the cover!

This Wicked Game by Michelle Zink

Always glad to see a new series from Michelle Zink.  I didn't get a chance to read Temptation of Angels but I absolutely love her Prophesy of the Sisters series! This cover, however, will take a little time to grow on me, I think.

Very excited for all four of these! What do you think?

Thankful for YOU! My Super-ThanksGiving-Away Kick-off! :D

Hi all!! :D  So, during the holiday season, I tend to get all sappy and gushy towards..well, everyone.  You'll have to excuse me.  But I wanted to come up with a way to show my blog friends and visitor how truly grateful I am that they stop in here at Stories & Sweeties, how absolutely honored I am that people enjoy my little corner of the web enough to visit often and to take the time to comment, follow, etc.  This blog has truly become my baby and I'm so very grateful that this great book-loving community shares that with me.  SO, today I'm announcing:

 
Starting today, and EVERY DAY until the end of November, I'll be starting a giveaway.  Some will be one book, some will be more, and while I'm sorry that I have to keep most of these to the US, I will be throwing in a couple of internationally-open book order contests, so keep an eye out for those!

So let's kick this off with a bang!!
 I know there are some of you out there who are excited for this lovely book! 

ARC of Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger!
Fill out below to win it!
•US mailing addresses only
•must 13 or older
•Last day to enter:  November 24, 2012

a Rafflecopter giveaway