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Early Riser

The brilliantly funny novel from the Number One bestselling author of Shades of Grey

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Early Riser

By: Jasper Fforde
Narrated by: Thomas Hunt
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Summary

 Jasper Fforde's first standalone novel - full of the imagination, wit and intelligence that has made Fforde a Number One bestseller.

Every Winter, the human population hibernates.

During those bitterly cold four months, the nation is a snow-draped landscape of desolate loneliness, and devoid of human activity.

Well, not quite.

Your name is Charlie Worthing and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses.

You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artefact borne of the sleeping mind.

When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling.

When you get the dreams too, it's weird.

When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity.

But teasing truth from Winter is never easy: You have to avoid the Villains and their penchant for murder, kidnapping and stamp collecting, ensure you aren't eaten by Nightwalkers whose thirst for human flesh can only be satisfied by comfort food, and sidestep the increasingly less-than-mythical WinterVolk.

But so long as you remember to wrap up warmly, you'll be fine.
(P)2018 Hodder & Stoughton Limited©2018 Jasper Fforde Action & Adventure Fantasy Fiction Dream Winter
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Critic Reviews

Praise for Early Riser
Fforde pours his brilliant imagination into every corner of this world
Endlessly imaginative and distinctively quirky, this is entertaining fun
Brilliantly funny . . . His relentless imagination and his affection for his characters are contagious and irresistible
The master of the alternative universe
It's been worth the wait
Make(s) us look at our world anew
the thriller aspect is propulsive
Jasper Fforde lunacy at its best
Fans of Jasper Fforde's unique blend of comic
dystopia and quirky British cosiness will not be
disappointed with his first novel in six years
a zany send-up of all things British
Praise for Jasper Fforde
Reading a Fforde novel feels like taking off on a magic carpet, only to be picked up by another and another and taken on new flights of fantasy . . . When the plot is thundering along, peppered with jokes, lively dialogue and silly names . . . you just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Fans of the late Douglas Adams, or, even, Monty Python, will feel at home with Fforde
Forget all the rules of time, space and reality; just sit back and enjoy the adventure.
'Fforde's books are more than just an ingenious idea. They are written with buoyant zest and are tautly plotted. They have empathetic heroes and heroines who nearly make terrible mistakes and suitably dastardly villains who do. They also have more twists and turns than Christie, and are embellished with the rich details of Dickens or Pratchett
No summaries can do justice to the sheer inventiveness, wit, complexity, erudition, unexpectedness and originality of the works, nor to their vast repertoire of intricate wordplay and puns
I love to dive into Jasper Fforde's books. They're wildly imaginative but he makes you believe every word. Where else can you encounter a ditzy dodo, a deadly chimera and a straight-as-an-arrow detective investigating what really happened to Humpty Dumpty? Great stuff. (David Baldacci)
Fforde keeps the puns and neologisms coming thick and fast while exploring every facet of his novel's intriguing premise
All stars
Most relevant
A great story that seemed a bit slow at first but then, before I realised, the hooks were in and I couldn't stop listening. Thouroughly enjoyable.

Really enjoyed this one

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Jasper Fforde never disappoints. This standalone is just as weird and wonderful as the worlds of Thursday Next and Shades of Grey.

Great

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Not as good as the chromatic series or the rabbits. But still quite good. Worth a credit, if you like that sort of thing. Cheers!

Not to the usual calibre but still great

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Great story please finish the orhers. Great narration by the reader. Will listen again soon.

Great Story.

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I admit I took a while to get immersed into this tale, unlike Jasper's other books, but I am glad I stuck with it. Lots of twists and turns and red herrings.
An entertaining read that should hold me until later this year when book 2 of Shades of Grey is due for publication.

watch out for the Gronk!

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