Up next in my Friday Favorites is a series that fits into both the Fantasy and Mystery genres. This is another series that I think a lot of people have not heard of, so I’m excited to share it with you!
The Thursday Next Series by Jasper Fforde
It has been quite a few years since I read the The Woman Who Died a Lot (the most recently published book in the series), and at the time, that was the last book in the series. So imagine my surprise when I opened up Goodreads today and saw that a new book is due out next year! I am so excited for that! Oh goodness, I suppose I will have to re-read the first seven in the series. (I can’t wait!)
The series starts in an alternate universe version of England in 1985. The Crimean war has been going on for over a hundred years, England is practically a police state, Welsh cheese is outlawed, and the shadowy Goliath corporation has their fingers in every pie.
Thursday Next, a veteran of the Crimean war, is now a Literary Detective with SO-27, a division of the Special Operations Network. The Special Operations Network was created to handle unusual or specialized policing duties in this version of England, and some of their divisions include the Genetic Detectives section, Werewolf and Vampire Disposal Operations, the Pasta Police, Literary Detectives, and the Cheese Enforcement Agency.
In this series, you will meet time travelers, Thursday’s pet dodo bird (Pickwick), a vampire hunter, a Neanderthal bus driver, and many other interesting characters as Thursday investigates all manner of literary crimes.
These books have it all – mystery, literary references, corruption, collusion, absurdity, and some quite catchy names. The entire series is great fun to read and completely unlike anything else I’ve ever read. I have heard that if you’re a fan of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker series, or Lewis Carroll’s writing (confession: I’ve read neither), then you’ll probably like this series.
And if you like the books, be sure to check out the author’s website (www.jasperfforde.com) and click around the links related to the series. There’s a lot of gold to be found there!
Have you read any of the books in this series? How did you like them? Let me know in the comments!
Melissa L. Freeman - Author 