Waistcoats & Weaponry by Gail CarrigerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
***2021 Dog Days of Summer***
It's time for my summer theme and this year I have chosen to read books that include canine companions. This series includes a mechanical dog (a mechanimal), Bumbersnoot. He's a semi-illegal contraption that our main character, Sophronia, has smuggled into her finishing school.
This is not your regular finishing school, but a training ground for espionage. Sophronia is acknowledged as a very talented pupil, but she will need to choose a patron or a husband to support her as she pursues her calling. Being rather even handed, seeking to balance events, Sophronia is having a difficult time choosing. She has received scrumptious gifts from a well connected vampire, she has a good friend who is related to a prominent werewolf pack, and she is being romantically pursued by a Pickleman's son (the Picklemen oppose the two supernatural groups).
Sophronia goes home for her brother's engagement ball and becomes embroiled in a couple of interlocking peccadilloes. As usually happens. They must get Lady Longair back to her Scottish werewolves, figure out what the vampires are up to, and deal with Flywaymen associated with the Picklemen, all while keeping the peace between the two young men interested in Sophronia, Lord Felix Mersey and Soap, one of the boiler room boys from the finishing school dirigible. Not to mention doing it while trying to maintain a masculine disguise.
If anyone can pull it off, it is Sophronia! Bumbersnoot accompanies her every step of the way and seems to understand her commands better than a regular mechanimal. Will he save the day or will his coal eating habits sabotage their escapades?
Thank you, Gail Carriger, for a fun alternate history where schools for female espionagers and male evil geniuses are par for the course.
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