Jilly Cooper, the lost manuscript and bonkbusters

I have seen Jilly Cooper’s books in charity shops for years, but I was never tempted to pick one up. I assume that often the covers put me off. Recently though, Disney made a series after Rivals one of the books in the Rutshire Chronicles series.

I saw the promo and it seemed fun, then I saw a conversation about the TV series on a morning show and it piqued my interest even more.

I want to clarify from the beginning that I have not seen all the episodes of Rivals, the Disney + series, just the first episode, and I am only about one hundred something pages into the first book of the series Riders.

I found the series funny more than anything, but the book I quite enjoy, so I started to also read a bit about Jilly Cooper.

In the Acknowledgements for Riders Jilly Cooper mentions that the book was fifteen years in the making. That made me wonder: But whyyy? Of course I found that endearing, as my books have been in the oven for long times also.

So I asked my research assistant chat GPT and he, yes he is male, told me that at the beginning of the seventies Jilly Cooper had almost finished Riders but she lost the manuscript on a bus in London. Sadly the manuscript was never recovered and only ten years later did Jilly Cooper start writing it again, publishing it at last in 1985.

When she was 48 years old.

Jilly Cooper was already a well known writer by the time she published it, but Riders was her first fiction work and it was immensely successful, leading, together with other writers as Jackie Collins, and Shirley Conran to the creation of the bonkbuster genre.

Again, I had no idea what this means so I asked my Research Assistant and found out that:

A bonkbuster is a term used, primarily in the UK, to describe a genre of popular fiction that typically features racy, romantic, and dramatic story lines, often set within glamorous or high-society worlds. The word combines "bonk" (a British slang term for sex) and "blockbuster," indicating a novel that both deals with sensual themes and is commercially successful.

Every day is a school day, I had no idea this existed.

Jilly Cooper’s writing is catchy and engaging, it has dimension and I like how she creates her characters and shifts perspective from one to the other. I quite enjoy reading her and the story lines seem interesting.

Of course some of the characters are over the top, but I think this is part of their charm as most often they are like no human we would meet in our normal day to day.

I haven’t read more than one book to know if the plots repeat themselves or they are nice and different, but I think I might as they are quite enjoyable.

It is great to discover new authors and books, learn about their experiences and paths, it teaches me so much and in a way builds me up.

If you give a try to one of Jilly Cooper’s bonkbusters or if you are already a fan I would love to know what in her writing makes it enjoyable for you and which is your favorite book.