Sometimes I come across a book or series that I love so much I have gloat about it on behalf of the author. Etiquette & Espionage is one of those books!
Etiquette & Espionage is a YA series by Gail Carriger. Here’s a brief description of book one via Amazon: 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. 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.
OK, so I love this series. Why bring it up on here? Because Etiquette & Espionage is a paranormal-historical-steampunk book. It takes place in Victorian England (Or thereabouts) and there’s gadgets and machinery and vampires and werewolves! It’s such a bizarre genre, but the book is absolutely fascinating. The marketing team behind this book probably pulled their hair out because pitching a book that is so specialized/niched can be difficult–but it works!
I love it. I applaud it. I hope we continue to see genre-busting books like this–they’re highly original and when well written they are a treat to read. That being said I should probably warn you I have no desire to make the next Sci Fi-chick lit-high fantasy book. Genre busting is fun, but I’m not certain I have the brain capacity–much less the nerves–to handle it.
How about you Champions? Have you read any good niche/genre crossover books?