Mount!

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The downtrodden abused wife and Janey's online dating friend was also absolutely pointless and reminded me of a very similar storyline in Apassionata Cooper’s break came at a crucial moment. Unable to have children, she and Leo were in the process of adopting a baby (Felix, followed later by Emily) when she met Godfrey Smith, then editor of the Sunday Times magazine, at a dinner, and regaled him with the details of life as a young wife.

Mount! by Jilly Cooper | Waterstones

Cooper’s books became synonymous with the term “bonkbuster”, but she’s not convinced by the description herself. “They’re a bit of everything, really,” she says. “And happy endings, too. But if they want to call it bonkbuster they can – except it ought to be called ‘shagbuster’ now, bonk is out of date.”The big news is that Rupert C-B is now – drumroll – in his late 50s. Don’t make a family tree (he’s theoretically a great-grandfather), obviously, but making him 59 keeps him within the realms of contemporary fanciability, when you consider that Mark Carney is 51, Obama 55, and Mark Rylance and Robert Peston both 56. I also agree her nature writing is lovely and her older characters used to be flawed but they generally redeemed themselves in some way. Rupert will face temptation like never before in Mount! What made you choose to test him and Taggie, which is one of the most loved relationships in your novels?

Jilly Cooper’s sensational classic from the Sunday Riders: Jilly Cooper’s sensational classic from the Sunday

Oh DEAR. I'm scanning my way through the endless chapters on the intricacies of a local horse race in the hope of finding a few words on humans, preferably one I know, or a crumb or two of humour or raunch. Rupert is consumed by one obsession: that Love Rat, his adored grey horse, be proclaimed champion stallion. He longs to trounce Roberto’s Revenge, the stallion owned by his detested rival Cosmo Rannaldini, which means abandoning his racing empire at Penscombe and his darling wife Taggie, and chasing winners in the richest races worldwide, from Dubai to Los Angeles to Melbourne. Too many unlikable characters who never really redeemed themselves. Hated Gala. The Jan subplot was annoying. And Taggie where is your spine?Why do you think Jilly did it? Have read a few interviews with her recently - the Camilla Long one in the times was particularly interesting. We all learned so much from her: that the correct amount of perfume to wear is roughly half a bottle, so you trail it like a ship’s wake. To never underestimate the power of clean hair. That it is perfectly fine and normal to get a bit sweaty and red in the face while throwing a dinner party; have casual sex with stable hands or get paralytically drunk at any given opportunity. It is not at all fine to be greedy; to gossip about someone while pretending to pity them, or show off about – or even mention – your children. And of course one must vow eternal vengeance on anyone who so much as snubs an animal of any sort. Her gossip ranges from David Cameron (“The interesting thing about Cameron is he’s very good looking in the flesh. But he needs shading. He needs a good suntan”) and Margaret Thatcher (“She said she read the whole of Kipling, which I don’t believe. She said: ‘I don’t read for pleasure, I read to activate themind.’ But she was a dear”), to Wordsworth (“Terrible legs, did you know that? Terribly pompous”). You can’t say anything now. Not that one wants to say people are fat, but mind you, they are huge, aren’t they? Although many of her novels have "spiced up" scenes these do not overshadow a gripping yarn in this novel. It is unlike me to spend half a year reading one of her books but time has been limited for doing anything recently although I have read the final 25% in little more than a week. I always said it’s like building a cathedral – sometimes a bit falls down, but it’s lovely, lovely,” she says today. Jolly Super once again.

Mount! - Penguin Books UK

What a big complicated world Cooper has created in this series. Many of them quite fun to read and enjoy. I did suspect that there had been so gentle age massaging with regards to Rupert approaching sixty and his grandson, Young Eddie, aged twenty-three, but who cares if a few years have been lost along the way?For regular readers of Cooper's novels I am sure that many characters played major roles in previous books in the series.

Jilly Cooper: ‘People were always coming up to us at parties Jilly Cooper: ‘People were always coming up to us at parties

Her columns were eventually collected into a book, Jolly Super – a title which still sums up her approach to life. But before that, in the late 60s, came How to Stay Married. “It was an incredibly vain thing to do really. I’d only been married seven years. But it was fun,” Cooper says. “Leo said it ought to be called How to Get Divorced – I was doing the Sunday Times column, had a new baby, and this book to write. It was too much, far too much. Anyway I did it. Now it’s terribly politically incorrect, the fact you had to cherish your husband, run home and cook him dinner, try and work 8.30-4.30 so he wouldn’t see you doing housework. But it was the time I was in. It seems awful.” I always liked those hunky, rather forceful men The national /racial /xenophobic stereotypes are getting ever more cringe worthy and if you're female you've still got to loose weight to get your man. Spoiler alert!*** One of the prevailing themes of the books is Rupert's love for Taggie, and his faithfulness to her. In this book he cheats on her, and it seems so random. There is no believable reason, the person he sleeps with isn't likeable, there is no built up basis that makes the events understandable. It's like Jilly just threw it in there for excitement. ***Spoiler Alert over***

Many of your readers will have noticed the huge number of literary allusions in your novels – from Yeats to Tennyson, Shakespeare to P. D. James. What books are currently on your bedside table?