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The phlegmatic and resourceful Thursday pursues Acheron across the border into a Leninist Wales and further to Mr Rochester's Thornfield Hall, where both books find their climax on the roof amid flames. Fforde is endlessly inventive: The audacity of the premise and its working out provides sudden leaps of understanding, many of them accompanied by wild fits of the giggles.
This is a peculiarly promising first novel. Fforde is a true original' Birmingham Post 'An absolute joy to read. Is it a crime novel? I couldn't really tell, I was laughing too much. Unashamedly silly, but also marvellously intelligent.
Hilarious' Scotland on Sunday 'A decidedly quirky and strangely thought-provoking debut novel' Sunday Telegraph 'Let yourself be entertained by a witty romp' Elle 'The eccentric epic - A read that'll leave you breathless' Synopsis Thursday Next, literary detective and newlywed is back to embark on an adventure that begins, quite literally on her own doorstep. It seems that Landen, her husband of four weeks, actually drowned in an accident when he was two years old.
Someone, somewhere, sometime, is responsible. The sinister Goliath Corporation wants its operative Jack Schitt out of the poem in which Thursday trapped him, and it will do almost anything to achieve this - but bribing the ChronoGuard?
Having barely caught her breath after The Eyre Affair, Thursday must battle corrupt politicians, try to save the world from extinction, and help the Neanderthals to species self-determination. Mastadon migrations, journeys into Just William, a chance meeting with the Flopsy Bunnies, and violent life-and-death struggles in the summer sales are all part of a greater plan. Millions of readers now follow Thank you, Jasper' Leaving Swindon behind her to hide out in the Well of Lost Plots the place where all fiction is created , Thursday Next, Literary Detective and soon-to-be one parent family, ponders her next move from within an unpublished book of dubious merit entitled 'Caversham Heights'.
Landen, her husband, is still eradicated, Aornis Hades is meddling with Thursday's memory, and Miss Havisham - when not sewing up plotholes in 'Mill on the Floss' - is trying to break the land-speed record on the A But something is rotten in the state of Jurisfiction.
Perkins is 'accidentally' eaten by the minotaur, and Snell succumbs to the Mispeling Vyrus.
Lost in a Good Book has ratings and reviews. James said: Book Review Jasper Fforde had a stroke of brilliance with the Thursday Next. Three months after the events of The Eyre Affair, Thursday Next is happily married to Landen Parke-Laine and working as a literary.
As a shadow looms over popular fiction, Thursday must keep her wits about her and discover not only what is going on, but also who she can trust to tell about it With grammasites, holesmiths, trainee characters, pagerunners, baby dodos and an adopted home scheduled for demolition, 'The Well of Lost Plots' is at once an addictively exciting adventure and an insight into how books are made, who makes them - and why there is no singular for 'scampi'. Something Rotten Book 4 of the Thursday Next series Sunday Express 'The best yet, which is quite remarkable considering how good the others were.
Buy it; chuckles guaranteed. An absolute must for any Fforde fan' Poisoned Pen 'Amazing. Fforde's literary invention and playfulness is unique' Herald Sun, Australia 'this is brilliantly conceived and cleverly written. Thursday has been despatched to capture escaped Fictioneer Yorrick Kaine but even so, now seems as good a time as any to retrieve her husband Landen from his state of eradication at the hands of the Chronoguard.
It's not going to be easy. Thursday's former colleagues at the department of Literary Detectives want her to investigate a spate of cloned Shakespeares, the Goliath Corporation are planning to switch to a new Faith based corporate management system and the Neanderthals feel she might be the Chosen One who will lead them to genetic self-determination.
With help from Hamlet, her uncle and time-travelling father, Thursday faces the toughest adventure of her career. Where is the missing President-for-life George Formby? And why is it so difficult to find reliable childcare? It's Easter in Reading - a bad time for eggs - and no one can remember the last sunny day. Humpty Dumpty, well-known nursery favourite, large egg, ex-convict and former millionaire philanthropist is found shattered beneath a wall in a shabby area of town.
Following the pathologist's careful reconstruction of Humpty's shell, Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his Sergeant Mary Mary are soon grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, the illegal Bearnaise sauce market, corporate politics and the cut and thrust world of international Chiropody. And on top of everything else, the JellyMan is coming to town Daily Mail 'A riot of puns, in-jokes and literary allusions that Fforde carries off with aplomb' --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Daily Mirror 'Hilarious, absurd and utterly compelling. The word of mouth on Jasper Fforde has long been enthusiastic, among those in the know. But now that his readership has expanded immeasurably, the expectations for such books as The Big Over Easy are considerable. And whether or not those expectations will be met by this new book depends on the readiness of readers to strike out in new directions--just as the author has done. Fforde's speciality has long been the outrageous teasing of narrative forms, and there's a measure of that here, although more disciplined than in earlier books.
Rather in the fashion in which Stephen Sondheim exploded the world of fairytale in Into the Woods, Fforde here brings all the apparatus of the tough crime thriller to bear on the nursery rhyme. The perpetrator would appear to be his ex-wife, but she has shot herself. Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his colleague Mary Mary are assigned to the case, and soon find themselves knee-deep in money-laundering, bullion smuggling and major problems with beanstalks.
This isn't quite the Fforde mixture as before, although he has previously favoured a crime motor for his plots. The skill in this outrageously entertaining and rigorously plotted concoction lies in a double conjuring trick: No child could appreciate the dazzling wordplay and witty imagination on offer here, and most readers will be more than happy to encounter detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his contrary sidekick kick Mary Mary again and again. After doubts arise concerning his handling of the Great Red-Legg'd Scissorman's arrest and the Red Riding Hood affair, he is suspended pending a mental health review.
His DS Mary Mary promises to consult him on all cases, to bypass the suspension. They begin an investigation of porridge-smuggling by anthropomorphic bears.
Jack's troubles increase when the argumentative Punches move in next door and his son adopts a sly and sticky-fingered pet. Furthermore, his psychiatrist is particularly sceptical about his claim that his new car repairs itself when no one is watching, and the car salesman who can prove his sanity cannot be found. His self-esteem is somewhat restored when the newspaperman who has been hounding him begs Jack's help in finding his missing sister "Goldilocks".
It seems she was working on an explosive story involving cucumber growers. Meanwhile the Gingerbreadman, the notorious murderous biscuit, or possibly cake escapes custody leaving a trail of bodies; Jack is frustrated when the case is given to an unimaginative officer outside NCD. While Jack and Mary are making enquiries about Goldilocks, they twice encounter the fugitive biscuit, but fail to capture him. With an unexploded bomb threatening to engulf the whole of Reading and National Security on their tail, Jack and Mary must put the pieces together and discover the identity of the Fourth Bear.
Thursday Next, literary detective and newlywed is back to embark on an adventure that begins, quite literally on her own doorstep. It seems that Landen, her husband of four weeks, actually drowned in an accident when he was two years old. Someone, somewhere, sometime, is responsible. The sinister Goliath Corporation wants its operative Jack Schitt out of the poem in which Thursday trapped him, and it will do almost anything to achieve this - but bribing the ChronoGuard?
Having barely caught her breath after The Eyre Affair, Thursday must battle corrupt politicians, try to save the world from extinction, and help the Neanderthals to species self-determination. Mastadon migrations, journeys into Just William, a chance meeting with the Flopsy Bunnies, and violent life-and-death struggles in the summer sales are all part of a greater plan.
Fforde failed his Welsh Nationality Test by erroneously identifying Gavin Henson as a TV chef, but continues to live and work in his adopted nation despite this setback. When Landen, the love of her life, is eradicated by the corrupt multinational Goliath Corporation, Thursday must moonlight as a Prose Resource Operative of Jurisfiction—the police force inside the BookWorld. Following the pathologist's careful reconstruction of Humpty's shell, Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his Sergeant Mary Mary are soon grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, the illegal Bearnaise sauce market, corporate politics and the cut and thrust world of international Chiropody. Last Dragonslayer Book 3. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. The book is packed with wild, hilarious ideas: For more than fifty years, the country has been affected by a horrifying epidemic of ghosts.
The new standalone novel from the Number One bestselling author. The Eye of Zoltar: Last Dragonslayer Book 3. The Thursday Next Collection The Woman Who Died a Lot: Thursday Next Book 7. The Song of the Quarkbeast: Last Dragonslayer Book 2. One of our Thursdays is Missing: Nakajima, a woman who's learned how to travel through books.
Mrs Nakajima introduces her to bookjumping, the method by which one enters the fictional world without the Prose Portal: It turns out that there is a police force within literature both fiction and non-fiction , Jurisfiction, which employs both fictional characters and real people ranging from the Cheshire cat and the Red Queen to Ambrose Bierce and Voltaire , and ensures that literature continues in an orderly fashion. Next herself is apprenticed as a rookie Jurisfiction agent to Miss Havisham , the abandoned bride from Dickens ' novel Great Expectations.
Thursday is, however, in some legal trouble in the literary world for having changed the ending of Jane Eyre , in The Eyre Affair. After a preliminary hearing in the Byzantine world of Kafka 's The Trial and saving Abel Magwitch from drowning before the beginning of Great Expectations , Havisham and Thursday part ways and the latter character enters "The Raven" and retrieves Jack Schitt. But Goliath have no intention of keeping their word, and they trap Thursday in a Corporation warehouse without any reading material with which she can read herself out.
Miss Havisham finds her there when it's discovered that the copy of Cardenio which Thursday found in the real world was stolen from the Great Library a building where copies of every book ever written or conceived of are kept by another literary character. Miss Havisham uses one of Thursday's clothing labels to read the pair eventually and with great effort back to the Great Library. Guided through her dreams and memories by Landen, Thursday finds the event that caused the world-ending accident—or rather, the person: Aornis can edit people's memories so they don't remember her presence, which is why Thursday needed help from Landen to find Aornis in her own memory.
Cardenio is retrieved but Aornis escapes and now Goliath, the ChronoGuard, and SpecOps all seek to apprehend Thursday on Goliath's contrived charge of stealing corporate secrets. At the book's end, Aornis pressures Thursday to kill herself so that Aornis will prevent the world from turning into Dream Topping.
Thursday's father takes her place in the nick of time and sacrifices himself as Mycroft's Dream Topping see dream whip making machine breaks down and begins producing the goo continuously; he takes all the Dream Topping to the dawn of Earth, where it—and he—will supply the organic nutrients needed to create life. Afterwards, Thursday returns home and finds her father there.
She is confused until she realizes that, being a time traveller, he will sacrifice himself much later in his future, even though it was just a little while ago in hers.