When I got to the end I actually re-read the last couple of chapters as I wasn't ready to let the story go yet. He still adores Taggie but is increasingly angry when she refuses to accompany him because there’s so much to do at home: coping with grandchildren, running the cake stall at the fete, organizing a huge surprise party for him.

Jilly Cooper bestseller Rivals set for eight-part TV adaptation Jilly Cooper bestseller Rivals set for eight-part TV adaptation

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. For those of us who have followed the follies and successes of Rupert Campbell-Black and his wife Taggie, it is a lovely reunion. His intentions were purely financial but they changed once he met Janna Curtis, the new head of Larks. Even if he suffers no consequences, there are consequences for those whom work with him, socialise with him, and are rivaled by him. What I do have a problem with is that we are supposed to consider this a happy ending, with a literal tribute to Rupert at the end.his other favourite horse, Safety Car, loves playing football with Rupert’s Jack Russells and will no doubt get signed up.

Jilly Cooper - Books - Mount! - Jilly Cooper

At first it buckled against her tightness then, tearing her because of her dryness, forced itself inside. He is motivated by his loathing of the beautiful bounder and darling of the show ring, Rupert Campbell-Black. The novel’s success rescued the Coopers financially (“The bank manager had said we had to sell the house, we were completely broke”) and set light to the publishing world.

And predictably, subterfuge puts Rupert's horses and staff in harm's way - with any number of possible suspects.

Mount! by Jilly Cooper | Waterstones

by the death of his life-long companion, Billy Lloyd-Foxe, who always had a stabilizing and humanizing effect on Rupert’s behaviour.Gala adores horses, and when she switches to working in the yard, her carer’s job is taken by a devastatingly handsome South African man who claims to be gay but seems far keener on caring for the angelic Taggie. A difficult mixture of barbed and hilarious class observations, a naturally warm writing style and a massive soppy heart that always sides with the underdog makes Cooper frankly irresistible, and Mount is no different.

Mount! by Jilly Cooper | Goodreads Mount! by Jilly Cooper | Goodreads

It is a sport new to her, and she has loaded this novel with all of the detail that she had learned to fictionalize the hustling of horses and jockeys, owners and trainers in this high octane and monied world. Octavia is one of Cooper's "name" books, which each bear a female character's name, and has been made into a television adaptation.Once her husband dies, Etta’s children make her shift from her sweet Dorset home to a hideous bungalow in Cotswold village of Willowwood. Corinium’s managing director Tony Baddingham, O’Hara quickly learns, is a fierce rival of Campbell-Black’s. An ambitious and stunningly attractive headmaster, Hengsit Brett-Taylor, comes up with a plan to share his school’s facilities with Larkminster Comprehensive aka ‘Larks’. But it’ll also be about a fight to save a local newspaper, because newspapers are having such a struggle to survive these days, and I feel they are truly the guardians of our democracy. The Taggie we knew in Rivals was principled - telling Rupert Declan was right to refuse to read the Corinium application and standing up for animal rights etc.