ETIQUETTE & ESPIONAGE is the first part of a new YA series and it goes directly into the action. Sophronia is a cheeky but likeable protagonist who stumbles from one adventure to the next with their curiosity and intelligence. As much as me Sophronia has also fallen, but I think that we learn for my taste too little about it. Your character is quite two-dimensional, but that may change in the succession volumes of course.
Sophronia are provided a number of interesting minor characters on the page. She closes quickly with some classmates friendship and there are also appearances by characters who are already occurred in Gail Carrigers PARASOL Protectorate series. All these figures have pleased me very well and I am pleased already on further reading about it.
Even the act of ETIQUETTE & ESPIONAGE could convince me. Sophronias adventure and the insight into the special education of girls talk about the balance and the tension in the novel is kept consistently high. ETIQUETTE & ESPIONAGE is located in the same as the PARASOL Protectorate Series Steampunk world, but decades earlier, and Gail Carriger can score well here with their original and interesting World Building.
All in all, I ETIQUETTE & ESPIONAGE liked, although I have become not quite warm with Sophronia. But I'll look at in any case the continuation curtsies & Conspiracies, which will be released in November 2013. Recommended!
