Lost in a Good Book


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The Constant Rabbit comes “Harry Potter just for adults . . . [an] immensely enjoyable, almost compulsive experience” (The New York Times Book Review)—the second novel in the renowned Thursday Next series. “[Lost in a Good Book] is satire, fantasy, literary criticism, thriller, whodunit, game, puzzle, joke, postmodern prank, and tilt-a-whirl.”—The Washington Post If resourceful, fearless literary detective Thursday Next thought she could avoid the spotlight after her heroic escapades in the pages of Jane Eyre, she was sorely mistaken. Her adventures as a renowned Special Operative in literary detection have left Thursday Next yearning for a rest. But when the love of her life is eradicated by the corrupt multinational Goliath Corporation, Thursday must bite the bullet and moonlight as a Prose Resource Operative in the secret world of Jurisfiction, the police force inside the books. There she is apprenticed to Miss Havisham, the famous man-hater from Dickens’s Great Expectations, who teaches her to book-jump like a pro. If Thursday retrieves a supposedly vanquished enemy from the pages of Poe’s “The Raven,” she thinks Goliath might return her lost love, Landen. But her latest mission is endlessly complicated. Not only are there side trips into the works of Kafka and Austen, and even Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Flopsy Bunnies, Thursday finds herself the target of a series of potentially lethal coincidences, the authenticator of a newly discovered play by the Bard himself, and the only one who can prevent an unidentifiable pink sludge from engulfing all life on Earth. Don’t miss any of Jasper Fforde’s delightfully entertaining Thursday Next novels: THE EYRE AFFAIR • LOST IN A GOOD BOOK • THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS • SOMETHING ROTTEN • FIRST AMONG SEQUELS • ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING • THE WOMAN WHO DIED A LOT




The Song of the Quarkbeast


Book Description

International bestselling author Fforde invites fans to return to the witty, wizardly world of the Chronicles of Kazam with the fabulous follow-up to "The Last Dragonslayer."




Shades of Grey


Book Description

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Thursday Next series comes a “laugh-out-loud funny” (Los Angeles Times) and “brilliantly original” (Booklist, starred review) novel of a man attempting to navigate a color-coded world. “A rich brew of dystopic fantasy and deadpan goofiness.”—The Washington Post Welcome to Chromatacia, where the Colortocracy rules society through a social hierarchy based on one’s limited color perception. In this world, you are what you can see. Eddie Russet wants to move up. When he and his father relocate to the backwater village of East Carmine, his carefully cultivated plans to leverage his better-than-average red perception and marry into a powerful family are quickly upended. Eddie must content with lethal swans, sneaky Yellows, inviolable rules, an enforced marriage to the hideous Violet deMauve, and a risky friendship with an intriguing Grey named Jane who shows Eddie that the apparent peace of his world is as much an illusion as color itself. Will Eddie be able to tread the fine line between total conformity—accepting the path, partner, and career delineated by his hue—and his instinctive curiosity that is bound to get him into trouble?




Early Riser


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “hilarious” (The Guardian), “blindingly inventive,” (The Seattle Times) and “wonderfully weird dystopian thriller” (Shelf Awareness) from the author of The Constant Rabbit and the Thursday Next series “A cause for celebration . . . Fforde writes witty, chewy sentences, full of morsels, and delivers them deadpan. . . . [His] relentless imagination and his affection for his characters are contagious and irresistible.”—The New York Times Book Review Every Winter, the human population hibernates. During those bitterly cold four months, the nation is a snow-draped landscape of desolate loneliness, devoid of human activity. Well, not quite. Your name is Charlie Worthing and it’s your first season with the Winter consuls, the group responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses. You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams, which you dismiss as nothing more than an artefact born of the sleeping mind. When the dreams start to kill people, it’s unsettling. When you get the dreams too, it’s weird. When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity. But teasing truth from Winter is never easy: You have to avoid the Villains and their penchant for murder, kidnapping, and stamp collecting; ensure you aren’t eaten by Nightwalkers; and sidestep the increasingly less-than-mythical Wintervolk. But so long as you remember to wrap up warmly, you’ll be fine.




The Woman Who Died a Lot


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Ex-detective Thursday Next faces her trickiest assignment yet in the seventh novel of this renowned series, “[a] bibliophile’s Wonderland” (The Plain Dealer). “It’s safe to say that if you enjoy that particularly British, Douglas Adams–style absurd delivery of wry observations, you’ll get a kick out of [The Woman Who Died a Lot].”—New York Journal of Books Thursday Next, the Bookworld’s leading enforcement officer, has been forced into semiretirement following an assassination attempt. When her former SpecOps division is reinstated, she assumes she’s the obvious choice to lead the Literary Detectives. Sadly, our banged-up heroine is no spring chicken, and her old boss has a cushier job in mind: Chief Librarian of the Swindon All-You-Can-Eat-at-Fatso’s Drink Not Included Library. But where Thursday goes, trouble follows. As the new Chief Librarian faces 100 percent budget cuts and trouble from the ever-evil Jack Schitt, the Next children face their own career hiccups—and possible nonexistence. Don’t miss any of Jasper Fforde’s delightfully entertaining Thursday Next novels: THE EYRE AFFAIR • LOST IN A GOOD BOOK • THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS • SOMETHING ROTTEN • FIRST AMONG SEQUELS • ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING • THE WOMAN WHO DIED A LOT




The Last Dragonslayer


Book Description

As magic fades from the world, 15-year-old Jennifer Strange is having trouble keeping her magician employment agency business afloat, until she begins having visions that foretell the death of the last dragon and the coming of Big Magic.




One of Our Thursdays Is Missing


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In the sixth novel of the renowned Thursday Next series, “geeky humor jostles with genuine insight” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) as Thursday embarks on another adventure in her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England. [One of Our Thursdays Is Missing] is jam-packed with spot-on parody, puns, and wry observations about words and genres that will delight literary-minded fans.”—Los Angeles Times Thursday Next is back! . . . Or at least one of her is. It is a time of unrest in the BookWorld. Only ace literary detective Thursday Next can avert a devastating genre war. Then, a week before the peace talks, Thursday vanishes. But all is not yet lost. Living at the quiet end of speculative fiction is the written Thursday Next, who labors to keep her own small series from the grim specter of being remaindered. Now she must answer the call, save the BookWorld, evade capture, and find the actual Thursday! With her clockwork butler Sprockett and her Designated Love Interest Whitby Jet in tow, written Thursday reluctantly agrees to undertake an investigation for Jurisfiction—only to realize that she must journey up the mysterious Metaphoric River and visit the RealWorld to find the answers. Don’t miss any of Jasper Fforde’s delightfully entertaining Thursday Next novels: THE EYRE AFFAIR • LOST IN A GOOD BOOK • THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS • SOMETHING ROTTEN • FIRST AMONG SEQUELS • ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING • THE WOMAN WHO DIED A LOT




Something Rotten


Book Description

The fourth installment in Jasper Fforde’s New York Times bestselling series follows literary detective Thursday Next on another adventure in her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England—from the author of The Constant Rabbit The popularity of Jasper Fforde’s one-of-a-kind series of genre-bending blend of crime fiction, fantasy, and top-drawer literary entertainment builds with each new book. Now in the fourth installment, the resourceful literary detective Thursday Next returns to Swindon from the BookWorld accompanied by her son Friday and none other than the dithering Hamlet. But returning to SpecOps is no snap—as outlaw fictioner Yorrick Kaine plots for absolute power, the return of Swindon’s patron saint foretells doom, and, if that isn’t bad enough, The Merry Wives of Windsor is becoming entangled with Hamlet. Can Thursday find a Shakespeare clone to stop this hostile takeover? Can she vanquish Kaine and prevent the world from plunging into war? And will she ever find reliable child care? Find out in this totally original, action-packed romp, sure to be another escapist thrill for Jasper Fforde’s legions of fans.




Wild Designs


Book Description

Althea Farraday is a thirty-eight-year-old divorced mother of three who's got a teenage son who's a Buddhist, a hypercritical sister who knows how to push all her buttons, a job on the endangered species list, and a love life to match. Just as she's settling in to a comfortable level of chaos, a near-perfect man enters her life. Equipped to steal her heart and help turn her passion for designing gardens into a new career, Patrick Donahugh may be too good to be true. Amid wild roses, California poppies, scarlet flax, sweet rocket, love-in-mist, and, of course, plenty of dirt, Wild Designs is a refreshingly honest and funny read that celebrates the almost-ready-to-bloom aspect of all our lives.




A Country Escape


Book Description

A YEAR IN THE COUNTRY. A YEAR TO FALL IN LOVE. The BRAND NEW deliciously romantic novel from the Sunday Times Number One Bestselling Author of A Summer At Sea and A Secret Garden. Fran has always wanted to be a farmer, so how she ended up a chef in London is anyone's guess. But her childhood dream is about to come true. She has just moved in to a beautiful but very run-down farm in the Cotswolds, currently owned by an old aunt who has told Fran that if she manages to turn the place around in a year, the farm will be hers. But Fran knows nothing about farming. She might even be afraid of cows. She's going to need a lot of help from her best friend Issi, and also from her wealthy and very eligible neighbour - who might just have his own reasons for being so supportive. Is it the farm he is interested in? Or Fran herself? Warm, funny and wonderfully romantic, this is Katie Forde at her very best.