It’s more than 20 years since I read my first Jilly Cooper novel. Way back then you almost had to carry them in a brown paper bag, so well known was she for her explicit tales of raunchy sex among the posh English horsey set.
Why, the things that woman would have a girl do while bent over backwards in a horse truck still make me blush.
Needless to say I devoured Riders, Rivals and Polo as quickly as was seemly. But when Jilly veered into the world of the orchestral (Appassionata and Score!), my interest waned and I headed off elsewhere. Not that it mattered to her – she carried on as a number one bestseller very happily without me.
But with Jump! we have reunited.
once again it is the horse breeders, trainers, jockeys and their various associated clingers-on jumping beds – and fences – in the idyllic English countryside.
At the heart of this story, however, you will not find a rakish brute or a comely gold-digger, but instead, two downtrodden females – a two-legged one, Etta, freshly widowed by her bully of a husband, and a four-legged one, ors Wilkinson, maltreated and found left for dead in the snow.
Together, these two ignite many an inflamed passion in the Cotswold village of Willowwood.
Puns fly faster than jealous boyfriends’ punches and everyone, even characters who only appear once, have nicknames like oop Idol or Needy Gonzales. The tweedy racing fraternity itself is known as the Check Republic.
Some of the lines had me in absolute stitches: “Granny absolutely stank of drink and had to stop and have a wee behind a tree,” says Etta’s grandson, dobbing her in to her giant pill of a son.
Meanwhile, “I love you so much and I take back everything I said about jockeys being rubbish in bed,” one ravishing beauty tells her Prince Charming.
Classic Jilly Cooper. If you loved her before, you’ll love her still.
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