#FinishingRA Wrap Up


The FINISHING SCHOOL READ-ALONG hosted by Dena @ Batch of Books and I (Tressa @ Wishful Endings) has officially ended. Thanks to all those that participated!!

Drum roll please...
The winner of the first three books in the Finishing School Series is: 
Julie Rimpula from the Philippines! 
Congratulations!!! Look for an email from Dena. :)

If you missed any of these updates and reviews, you can always go back and read both of our thoughts:
Nov 7: Curtsies, chapters 1-8/Dena's Update
Nov 14: Curtsies, chapters 9 -16, epilogue, and final thoughts on the book/Dena's Update
Nov 14: Curtsies REVIEW/Dena's Review
Nov 21: Waistcoats, chapters 1-8/Dena's Update
Nov 28: Waistcoats, chapters 8-16 and final thoughts on book/Dena's Update
Nov 28: Waistcoats REVIEW/Dena's Review
Scroll on down for our second interview with the author and a few final comments.

Author Interview

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 Dena 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.

Thank you so much, Gail, for answering another round of questions!

About the Series

Etiquette & Espionage


(You can see my review here and Dena's here.)

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. Temminick 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.
  

Curtsies & Conspiracies (Finishing School, #2)Curtsies & Conspiracies


(You can see my review here and Dena's here.)

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 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 & Weaponry (Finishing School, #3)Waistcoats & Weaponry


(You can see my review here and Dena's here.)

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.

Gather your poison, steel tipped quill, and the rest of your school supplies and join Mademoiselle Geraldine's proper young killing machines in the third rousing installment in the New York Times bestselling Finishing School Series by steampunk author, Gail Carriger.
  


I hope you guys enjoyed following along with Dena and I as we read these two books! It was such a blast and I know that asking questions while I read and having someone to discuss the books with made them even more meaningful and fun. I loved chatting back and forth with Dena as well. She was great!

I hope that if you haven't read this series, that you'll give it a chance. I know I definitely enjoyed it and would recommend it!


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