Early Riser
The new standalone novel from Number 1 bestselling author Jasper Fforde.
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.
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Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde is a writer whose mind seems to operate at a level where reality and imagination blur into a delightful, ever-expanding landscape of absurdity and wonder. Known for his quirky, genre-bending stories, Fforde is most recognized for his Thursday Next series, where literary characters literally walk off the page and the boundaries between fiction and reality grow increasingly porous. His books are a feast for readers who love puzzles, wit, and a touch of the fantastical.

