Description

The final novel in the highly acclaimed and beloved Thursday Next series. Will Thursday find her happy ending?

Swindon-based Literary Detective Thursday Next is embarking on her eighth and final adventure: ‘Dark Reading Matter’ and she is well aware of the fact. The problem is, others are too. Old foes and new are plotting a terrible revenge: To disrupt the narrative and make Dark Reading Matter not just unreadable but unpublishable. Thursday can’t let that happen and needs to use all her guile and narrative trickery to unmask the antagonists and guide the series to a satisfactory conclusion.

It won’t be easy. The Martians have broken out of their HG Wells novel and threaten both the real world and the Bookworld. Agents from a higher reality want unfettered access to the Dark Reading Matter, the realm where deleted books and unrealised literary ideas end up. A Gateway to Hell has opened up at Wantage’s Shakesmania, the nation’s second to worst Shakespeare theme park and the cosy world of Enid Blyton has been hi-jacked by Ultra Right Wing Nationalists. With Reality Field Distortion experiments going haywire, a partially redacted donkey, a Bookworld on the brink of losing its imaginative energy to Big Tech and a murderous stamp collector with Philaticide on their mind, Thursday has to navigate a tightrope of borderline unusable narrative devices to bring the series to a satisfactory conclusion.

It’s a tall order, but Thursday has a secret weapon: Her own adaptability, her husband Landen, a host of stalwart friends and ultimately the most loyal compatriots she can call upon: Her readers.

‘Hugely funny and gloriously imaginative’ Daily Express
‘Fans of the late Douglas Adams, or, even, Monty Python, will feel at home with Fforde’ Herald

Publisher Review

Cleverly constructed, with engaging characters and lots of good jokes . . . one of the quirkiest dystopias ever imagined * Guardian * The jokes are excellent, the pacing breathless and the last line a classic * Observer * Great fun and full of quirky worldbuilding detail * SFX * A fun yarn with . . . a generous dose of rollicking adventure * Reader’s Digest * Fforde paints a Terry Pratchett-esque picture laced with laughter * Daily Express * That mischievous little monkey Jasper Fforde was on his best form yet with Red Side Story . . . It was possible to invest a little in the characters, as well as enjoying the incessant puns and Fforde’s marvellously eccentric imagination * The Spectator * A born wordsmith of effervescent imagination * Independent * Brilliantly funny . . . His relentless imagination and his affection for his characters are contagious and irresistible * New York Times * True literary comic genius * Sunday Express * Forget all the rules of time, space and reality; just sit back and enjoy the adventure * Telegraph * Sheer inventiveness, wit, complexity, erudition, unexpectedness and originality * The Times * Reading a Fforde novel feels like taking off on a magic carpet, only to be picked up by another and another and taken on new flights of fantasy . . . you just sit back and enjoy the ride * Scotsman * A serious minded comedy * Mail on Sunday *