Waiting on Wednesday: Etiquette & Espionage

This little gem is hosted over at Breaking the Spine.

One book I can't wait to get my grubby little hands on is:

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 the bane of her mother's existence. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper etiquette at tea--and god forbid anyone see her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. She enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But little do Sophronia or her mother know that this is a school where ingenious young girls learn to finish, all right--but it's a different kind of finishing. Mademoiselle Geraldine's certainly trains young ladies in the finer arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but also in the other kinds of finishing: the fine arts of death, diversion, deceit, espionage, and the modern weaponries. Sophronia and her friends are going to have a rousing first year at school.

First in a four book YA series set 25 years before the Parasol Protectorate but in the same universe.  (Goodreads blurb)

The Why: The cover. The title. The blurb. It's all rockin'. Sounds like an awesome read to me! Although it worries me a little about the main character only being 14, but hopefully the author writes her with a little maturity. Now. Why couldn't I have gone to a boarding school like this? What kid DOESN'T need to learn about the fine arts of death, diversion, deceit, espionage and modern weaponries?  Oh yeah can't wait for this one!
To be published: February 5, 2013