The Eyre Affair

Jasper Fforde

Average Rating 8/10 (1 Review)

There is another 1985, somewhere in the could-have-been, where Thursday Next is a literary detective without equal, fear, or boyfriend. Thursday is on the trail of the villainous Acheron Hades, who has been kidnapping characters from works of fiction and holding them to ransom. Jane Eyre herself has been plucked from the novel of the same name, and Thursday must find a way into the book to repair the damage.

She also has to find time to halt the ongoing Crimean conflict, persuade the man she loves to marry her, rescue her aunt from inside a Wordsworth poem and figure out who really wrote Shakespeare's plays. Aided and abetted by a cast of characters that includes her time-travelling father, Jack Schitt of the all-powerful Goliath Corporation, a pet dodo named Pickwick and Edward Rochester himself, Thursday embarks on an adventure that will take your breath away.

A delight for anyone who has ever wondered where bananas come from or why Leigh Delamere motorway services are so peculiarly named, The Eyre Affair is classic storytelling at its most engrossing.

The world will never look the same again...

Review by Nigel (010102) Rating (8/10)

Review by Nigel
Rating 8/10
My sister and her husband, who both read it while on holiday, recommended this book. It concerns the manipulation of novels by Acheron Hades, the villain of the piece, who is kidnapping main characters from famous literature.

Thursday Next is the literary detective on his trail while trying to keep everybody happy, including her time travelling father, who pops up now and then for no apparent reason other than comic interest.

Having not read Jane Eyre I'm sure I missed quite a few of the in jokes and I must rectify this in the near future... watch this space.

The only criticism I have is there are a lot of loose ends that weren't tied up... I can feel a sequel coming along soon!

All in all a very good first novel well worth adding to any library.
Nigel (1st January 2002)