It is a time of unrest in the book world. Only the diplomatic skills of ace literary detective Thursday Next can avert a devastating genre war. But a week before the peace talks. Thursday vanishes. Has she simply returned home to the Real World or is this something more sinister?But all is not yet lost. Living at the quiet end of speculative fiction is the written Thursday Next. who is attempting to keep her own small four-book series both respectful to her illustrious namesake and far from the grim specter of being remaindered.Despite her desire to stay out of the spotlight, written Thursday is asked by Jurisfiction to investigate a novel that has suffered an in-read breakup and deposited a narrative debris field halfway across the Book World. It's not quite so straight-forward: Someone has ground the ISBN numbers from the wreckage, and all of a sudden the mysterious Men in Plaid want her dead.As the hunt for answers takes her from the Council of Genres to Fan Fiction and from Comedy to Vanity publishing, written Thursday realizes that real Thursday had been investigating a plot fiendish enough to be killed for. But who is responsible? Only a trip up the mighty Metaphoric River and a visit to the hideously frightening Real World can provide the answers.With her clockwork butler, Sprockett, and her Designated Love Interest, Whitby Jett, Thursday has to come to grips with her inability to live up to her namesake's talent and prove herself to the one person she respects more than anyone else: the real her.... Read Less