UK paperback	US hardcover	OZ paperback

The third installment in the Thursday Next saga was released in August 2003 in the UK and March 2004 in the US.

Synopsis:
The blurb for the UK edition goes like this:

Leaving Swindon behind her, to hide out in The Well of Lost Plots - the place where all fiction is created - Thursday Next, Literary Detective and soon-to-be one parent family, ponders her next move from inside an unpublished novel of dubious merit entitled Caversham Heights. Her husband, Landen, exists only in her memories and with Goliath and the Chronoguard on her tail in the real world, the safest place for her to be is inside the covers of a book.

But changes are afoot within the world of fiction. The much-awaited upgrade to the centuries-old book system - in which grammasites will be exterminated, punctuation standardised and the number of possible plots increased from eight to an astonishing thirty-two - is only weeks away. But if this is the beginning of a golden age in fictional narrative, then why are Jurisfiction agents mysteriously dying? Perkins is eaten by the minotaur, Snell succumbs to the Mispeling Vyrus and Godot is missing.

As the date of the upgrade looms closer and the bookworld prepares for the 923rd Annual Fiction Awards, Thursday must unmask the villain responsible for the murders, establish just what exactly the upgrade entails - and do battle with an old enemy intent on playing havoc with her memories.

US Edition Blurb:

Thursday Next definitely needs some downtime. After two rollicking New York Times-bestselling adventures through the Western literary canon, Britain's Prose Resource Operative was literally and literaturally at her wit's end-not to mention pregnant. So what could be more welcome than a restful stint in the Character Exchange Program down in the hidden depths of the Well of Lost Plots?

But a vacation remains elusive. In no time, Thursday discovers that the Well of Lost Plots is a veritable linguistic free-for-all where grammasites run rampant, plot devices are hawked on the black market and lousy books (like the one she has taken up residence in) are scrapped for salvage. To top it off, a murderer is stalking Jurisfiction personnel and nobody is safe, least of all Thursday herself.

Once again, it's up to the ever-resourceful gal detective to track down the killer, save her pulp novel-slash-temporary abode from being chucked into the Text Sea, and get back to her "real" life with her body (and memory, if it's not too much to ask) intact. Jasper Fforde has done it again in this absolutely brilliant feat of literary showmanship. When it comes to sheer wit, literate fantasy and effervescent originality, nothing can touch this new Ffordian tour de force.