A Finishing School of Covert *itchcraft and Social Wizardry

I had a harder time getting into this book as I have with other series buy the same author. I did eventually start to like the characters once they got to the school and some of the events leading up to the arrival were better explained. The encounter with flywaymen made little sense at first given that I had no idea what they were and the other characters hadn’t been especially well detailed at this early point. The explanation provided during the attack just didn’t make sense until later when I had a better idea of this particular story world.
In any event, the general plot reminded me a bit of Soulless (minus the sex of course, as this is a YA novel). The heroine is stifled by her conventional socially ambitious family and she quickly find a way to get away from them by becoming involved with the supernatural and investigating mysteries of society. Here, we have Sophronia who is sent away to school to improve her lack of social grace, but what she doesn’t realize is that this finishing school is in fact a school for etiquette but also for covert missions (hence the title). While attending school, Sophronia makes friends and an enemy, and uncovers some interesting secrets about the school. Once Sophronia and friends figure out the mystery (or at least part of it) concerning her nemesis Monique, they head back to Sophronia’s home for her sister’s coming out ball and final confrontation. Chaos and hilarity ensues, and all is well in the end. Except for Monique of course.
I have to admit, while I enjoyed some of the references to characters who play a role in later series, I think my favorites were two side characters, Bumbersnoot and Pillover. The former is mostly a source of comic relief who plays a fun role in the climax, and the latter is little brother to one of Sophronia’s friends (Dimity-I wondered about a joke with the name but it never went anywhere) sent to a school for evil geniuses. Pillover wants to be evil but always seems to fail at it, and he ends up helping his sister and her friends at the end by playing to his failure as a bad guy.
Besides taking a little longer to get into the characters and story, the one disappointment I had with this book is that the language is not quite as witty as in the adult novels. Instead much of the amusement factor comes from the intertwined teaching and studying of spy-craft and fine arts of being a lady in high society.