Bananas for Edward by Landen Parke-Laine

Thanks to azcentral.com
Title: Bananas for Edward 

Author: Landen Parke-Laine

Publisher: Not known 

Source book: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde 

Thursday Next’s husband Landen Parke-Laine is having a bit of a problem. His literary novels, despite being loaded with awards, aren’t selling as well as they might. And his publisher wants him to write self-help books instead. Poor Landen. He’s reduced to penning such classics as The Little Book of Cute Pets that You Really Like to Hug and The Darnedest Things Kids Say. His publishers have rejected Fatal Parachuting Mistakes and How to Avoid Making Them; although it could be full of really useful advice they don’t seem interested. 

Landen has also considered Men Are From Earth, Women Are From Earth - Just Deal With It but perhaps his publishers won’t like the sound of that either. And he is composing an outline of a self-help book for dogs called Yes, You CAN Open the Door Yourself. Hmmm… Honestly Landen, dogs just need to look on Instagram (which regularly features beagles opening fridges). Oh wait, I don’t think it exists in his universe.

On top of everything else Landen’s latest novel, Bananas for Edward, isn’t going well at all. He is suffering from writer’s block. So Thursday buys an unexpected plot twist in the form of a distant and extremely eccentric ex-military uncle suddenly arriving and upsetting the delicate balance of the ordered household: it’s Wing Commander Cornelius Scampton-Tappett.

Landen is also working on something called The Mews of Doom. So when Thursday instructs her plot twist to help out in Bananas for Edward she is thwarted: Landen is working on this book instead. I don’t think we know anything about either of these fictional books. So we really have no idea if the eccentric uncle plot would work better in either or neither.

And there is also a self-help project from Thursday’s ex-SpecOps partner Spike: Collecting the Undead. Spike specialises in vanquishing vampires and devils and so on. 

Landen isn’t making any money from his books but he’s still busy writing.

And…. in The Woman Who Died a Lot, Landen’s latest book is (deep breath) Dogs Who Wonder Why Their Owners Think They Know When They Are Coming Home Because We Dogs Don’t Really but Agree it Might Appear as if We Do. Oh dear, poor Landen. That’s not going to be the next great modern novel, is it? I wonder how he researched it?

Thanks to The Eden Project 


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