From racy riders to romantic rivals: Jilly Cooper’s best books – ranked!

The second series of Rivals has put the bestselling author’s brand of saucy jollity back on screen, but what is her bonkbuster nonpareil? In the last of Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire Chronicles – her epic, engrossing sagas of bucolic life among horse-riding poshos – Rupert Campbell-Black, template-handsome cad turned loving husband, is now (I did the maths) 67. Taggie has cancer, which is bracing, since the Chronicles as a whole rarely brush with mortality. I was astonished to learn that Cooper did 15 months of rewrites, following interventions from a sensitivity reader; it is not that sensitive, certainly not on class. Bianca, Rupert and Taggie’s daughter, has fallen in love with a footballer (“from the gu’er” – the Ts are silent) and her father buys a local club to keep them both in the postcode. Cue improbable league successes that make your heart soar. Continue reading...