Jasper began his career in the film industry, and for nineteen years held a variety of posts on such movies as Goldeneye, The Mask of Zorro and Entrapment. Secretly harbouring a desire to tell his own stories rather than help other people tell their's, Jasper started writing in 1990, and spent ten years secretly writing novel after novel as he strove to find a style of his own that was a no-mans-land somewhere between the warring factions of Literary and Absurd.

After receiving 76 rejection letters from publishers, Jasper's first novel The Eyre Affair was taken on by Hodder & Stoughton and published in July 2001. Set in 1985 in a world that is similar to our own, but with a few crucial - and bizarre - differences (Wales is a socialist republic, the Crimean War is still ongoing and the most popular pets are home-cloned dodos), The Eyre Affair introduces literary detective named 'Thursday Next'. Thursday's job includes spotting forgeries of Shakespeare's lost plays, mending holes in narrative plotlines, and rescuing characters who have been kidnapped from literary masterpieces.

Luckily for Jasper, the novel garnered dozens of effusive reviews, and received high praise from the press, from booksellers and readers throughout the UK. In the US The Eyre Affair was also an instant hit, entering the New York Times Bestseller List in its first week of publication.

Since then, Jasper has added another five to the Thursday Next series and has also begun a second series that he calls 'Nursery Crime', featuring Jack Spratt of The Nursery Crime Division. In the first book, The Big Over Easy, Humpty Dumpty is the victim in a whodunnit, and in the second, The Fourth Bear, the Three Bear's connection to Goldilocks disapperance can finally be revealed.

In a departure from the Thursday Next and Nursery Crimes series Shades of Grey, published in January 2010, tells the story of a fragmented society struggling to survive in a colour-obsessed post-apocalyptic landscape. Don't worry, it's not that serious.The sequel, Red Side Story was finally published in 2024, a long 14 year wait for fans but well worth it.

Released in November 2010 The Last Dragonslayer has been written for children and tells the story of Fifteen-year-old Jennifer Strange who runs Kazam, an employment agency for soothsayers and sorcerers. Its sequel, The Song of the Quarkbeast, was published in 2011.

One of Our Thursdays is Missing, the 6th instalment in the ever more popular Thursday Next Series was Jasper's first No. 1 UK bestseller. The 7th book in the series, The Woman Who Died a Lot, was published in 2012.

Jasper lives and writes in Wales and has a passion for aviation.

Taken from Jasper Fforde’s Website; for more information visit: www.jasperfforde.com.
Author Photo Credit - Mari Fforde; for more interesting photos see www.ffotographica.com.