Early Riser

The standalone novel from the Number One bestselling author

By: Jasper Fforde

Narrated by: Thomas Hunt

Jasper Fforde's first stand-alone novel - full of the imagination, wit and intelligence that has made Fforde a number one best seller.

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 born 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 be satisfied only 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.

©2018 Jasper Fforde (P)2018 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Only drawback - no sequel yet.

As I don't live in the UK and the audiobook was released same day as the hardcover I started listening to it before having the chance to read the book itself and I'm super happy about that because the book would have been finished in a night and this has been my companion for the last 10 days.
The book, as is a most of mr Fforde work, is imaginative, funny and quirky at the same time. It reminds me a little of my favorite book by him "Shades of Grey" as the main character again is a somewhat bewildered youngster with good intentions lost in a dystopian version of Wales. It is however completely different , original and very entertaining.
The narrator is great, with a deep but very clear welsh (?) accent which suites very well to the character of the book.
Highly recommended.

Not as good as his other books

It's a good story but not as good as Shades of Grey and the Next series