In the world of Thursday Next, performing Shakespeare badly can get you fined or even imprisoned. But a really good performance will get a Rocky Horror style audience participation (one of the funniest scenes in "The Eyre Affair"). People in Fforde's England routinely change their names to those of their favorite poets or writers and must therefore be assigned numbers (i.e. "John Milton 413" or "Byron 64"). Original first editions of books are cherished and are traded on the black market for hundreds of thousands of pounds (dollars). But it is in "The Eyre Affair" that their true value is discovered when Thursday's eccentric inventor uncle Mycroft creates the 'Prose Portal' which allows people to step in and out of literary works. And the danger begins when baddie Acheron Hades disrupts "Jane Eyre" by trying to kidnap its heroine right out of the book!

Fforde's writing style is mischievous, but completely loving of his subject matter and more than a bit silly. In reading his books you will find characters named "Paige Turner" and "Jack Schitt". But you'll also find a thoroughly rich and fully realized alternate England where there are "Will-Speak" machines on streetcorners that will spout Shakespeare lines upon request, timelines are in flux so that the Romanovs still rule Russia, the Crimean War has continued for a century and the banana has not yet been invented. Oh, sorry, now it has.

While there are many quote-worthy lines in "The Eyre Affair", one of the WriterGroupie's favorites is from villain Acheron Hades: "I'm not mad, I'm just... well, differently moraled, that's all."


Personal:

The Writer Groupie can't take credit for discovering this series, as it was actually her mother who noticed a review of the second book ("Lost In A Good Book") and gave the review to the WriterGroupie thinking that it would be something she would like. Intrigued by the world described in the review, the WriterGroupie picked up the first book ("The Eyre Affair") and by page six was madly in love with the books, the characters and the author's writing 'voice'.

The WriterGroupie hasn't been this excited about a new writer since she first picked up the equally quirky and unique Anonymous Rex. The WriterGroupie was thrilled when Mr. Fforde's recent U.S. book tour visited her city so she had a chance to thank him in person for his wonderful creation!