The Woman Who Died A Lot (Thursday Next #7) Review

The Woman Who Died A Lot (Thursday Next #7)

Jasper Fforde

Publisher: Hodder

The BookWorld's leading enforcement officer Thursday Next is four months into an enforced semi-retirement following an assassination attempt. She returns home to Swindon for what you'd expect to be a time of recuperation. If only life were that simple.
Thursday is faced with an array of family problems - son Friday's lack of focus since his career in the Chronoguard was relegated to a might-have-been, daughter Tuesday's difficulty perfecting the Anti-Smote shield needed to thwart an angry Deity's promise to wipe Swindon off the face of the earth, and Jenny, who doesn't exist.
And that's not all. With Goliath attempting to replace Thursday at every opportunity with synthetic Thursdays, the prediction that Friday's Destiny-Aware colleagues will die in mysterious circumstances, and a looming meteorite that could destroy all human life on earth, Thursday's retirement is going to be anything but easy.

I love Jasper Fforde’s sheer inventiveness and ingenuity when it comes to situations and plots. A single book from him has enough ideas to keep five lesser authors busy for their whole careers, but he just drops delightful ideas and wordplay like breadcrumbs and hopes you will keep up and follow him home.

This is the seventh book starring Thursday Next and instead of jumping into books, this time she faces an enemy she can’t outrun, outshoot or outthink: old age. Recovering from an accident, Thursday finds herself unable to ‘read herself’ into the Bookworld anymore and has to live entirely in the ‘real’ world – although her old enemies Goliath and Aornis Hades are up to something, Spec Ops has been reformed, her son has no motivation anymore and God has sworn to smite Swindon on this Friday...so it’s not exactly a relaxing week. Where Jasper Fforde excels is pulling together layered plots and sub-plots and making them work. Some of the plot line don’t have much in common other than Thursday and her family, but somehow that doesn’t matter much – it is the world building that ties everything together. It's nice as well to see our heroine aging and struggling with health - it makes her feel real especially if like me, you've been following her adventures over the last ten years. I've aged - why shouldn't my heroes!

I have to admit I enjoyed this adventure more than the last one as stories set entirely in the Bookworld just don’t seem to pop as much for me, fun as they were. This story doesn’t include any Bookworld characters and very few of Thursday’s old team, but has more involvement of Thursday’s family with Landen, Friday and Tuesday all given good development. Previously they hadn’t contributed much to the world, but here they round out Thursday as well as making their own impact on Swindon.

Overall, this is a fun read that is likely to make you scratch your head in confused enjoyment and just a joy to read. Pull up a chair, sit back and let Jasper Fforde take you to where he wants to go while you enjoy the scenery!

Recommended for fans of Tom Holt and Terry Prachett. 8 out of 10