The Finishing School Read Along has officially ended! The read along was hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings and myself (Dena @ Batch of Books). We had so much fun reading these books together and sharing our thoughts with everyone! Thank you to everyone who joined and read along with us!
Giveaway Winner!
The winner of the giveaway is Julie Rimpula from the Philippines!
Congrats Julie! Keep your eyes peeled for my email. 🙂
Update Recap:
If you want to read all our updates, I’ve included them here:
Nov 7: Curtsies, chapters 1-8/Tressa’s Update
Nov 14: Curtsies, chapters 9 -16, epilogue, and final thoughts on the book/Tressa’s Update
Nov 14: Curtsies REVIEW/Tressa’s Review
Nov 21: Waistcoats, chapters 1-8/Tressa’s Update
Nov 28: Waistcoats, chapters 8-16 and final thoughts on book/Tressa’s Update
Nov 28: Waistcoats REVIEW/Tressa’s Review
Another Interview with Gail Carriger!
1. Who is your favorite character to write?
I adore Lord Akeldama because he is so deliciously fun – all that mad italic–wielding action. I’m under the impression you need only read him to understand why.2. Does the Finishing School series tie in to the Parasol Protectorate series at all? [I’m going to clarify here that Tressa and I have not read the other series. When you stumble upon a book and series you have grown to love you then look to see what else the author has written and wonder if you would like those books just as much.]
Um. Yeesss? I’m confused by this question. If you have read both series you will notice hundreds of threads and tie-ins between the two, from events to characters. If you mean: will the major plot arc carry over and become dependent between series? Then, not really. Events in the Finishing School books certainly effect the world of the Parasol Protectorate (as, in turn, the Parasol Protectorate effects the Custard Protocol series), but you do not have had to have read one to understand the other.3. It seems as if the stakes are getting higher in each book. Is that something we can expect to continue?
Absolutely. Sophronia’s fortune teller did not lie, she will change the world as we know it.4. How did you come up with the names for the gadgets Sophronia and her friends use/invent?
Some of them are actual Victorian gadgets. Many, I just like the mouth feel of the word. Others I can’t understand why the word hasn’t already been used (like mechanimal.)5. Would you define the Picklemen and the flywaymen for us?
The Picklemen are kind of like a Victorian mafia meets aristocratic businessmen, the ultimate old boys network. They are always up to no good in pursuit of power in order to protect the empire for others – so long as those others are just like them. The Flyawaymen are the dirigible version of highwaymen, often allied and used as bully boys by the Picklemen.6. Do the new girls to the school have significant roles as the series finishes up?
Some. One of them, never named, has a key role in Changeless.7. Will there be a final test using the apparatus from the first chapter of Curtsies & Conspiracies when the girls finish at the school or will it be something else that they are tested with?
Sorry, that’s a spoiler.8. Will you be working on another Young Adult series after Finishing School?
Probably not for a while. I have an adult series I am working on, then I am going to take a bit of a break and see where I am and what I want to write next.
Thanks Gail, for answering more of our questions!
About the Series:
Etiquette and Espionage
Read my review HERE and Tressa’s HERE
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.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 the 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.Set
in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate, this YA series debut is
filled with all the saucy adventure and droll humor Gail’s legions of
fans have come to adore.
Curtsies and Conspiracies
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
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.Waistcoats and Weaponry
Class is back in session…
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.
Thanks again to everyone that participated in the read along and the giveaway! It was so much fun to read these books with Tressa and chat with her about them.
If you haven’t read the books, you definitely should! I highly recommend this series!
1 COMMENT
Yun-A
10 years agoThank you so much for hosting the readathon! I had an amazing time. I wonder if Mabel Dair is the new girl? I can't wait for Manners & Mutiny.