Great Britain circa 1985: time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodas are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. Based on an imaginary world where time and reality bend in the most convincing and original way since The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Eyre Affair is a delightful rabbit hole of a read: once you fall in you may never come back. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get...

As a Jurisfiction agent, Thursday has recently learned that the source of that creative wealth lies in the Well of Lost Plots, where writers' imaginations interface with characters and plots and nothing is impossible. Now, as the powers-that-be in the BookWorld prepare to release UltraWord, the ultimate reading experience, Thursday plans her own much-needed escape. Through the Character Exchange Program, she seeks refuge in an unpublished manuscript...

While the Stupidity Surplus overflows in England, literary detective Thursday Next deals with her defiant assistant, who insists on turning classic literature into reality television, and must also find a way to motivate her teenage son and smooth out the mess being made by the Council of Genres.

The Bookworld's leading enforcement officer, Thursday Next, has been forced into a semiretirement following an assassination attempt, returning home to Swindon and her family to recuperate. But Thursday's children have problems that demand she become a mother of invention: Friday's career struggles in the Chronoguard, where he is relegated to a might-have-been; Tuesday's trouble perfecting the Anti-Smote shield, needed in time to thwart an angry Deity's...