Lots of bed hopping, lack of development of characters and motivations for my liking.

Great fun, another raucous romp from the queen of romps. Always very entertaining reads, I'm a big fan - this hit all the right notes and was definitely a winner.

This was a delightful guilty pleasure! Gossipy and grand, great characters and some truly vile ones. This is my third encounter with Rupert Campbell-Black, God’s gift to women and horses. He is still an impressive asshole. In this book his main aim is to have his stallion Love Rat become leading sire, but the competition is stiff and his enemies are out to thwart him. Delicious! Perfect beach read.

3.5*

Jilly Cooper writes my ultimate chill out, indulgence reads and I loved this , bad sex scenes and all! Wonderful to re encounter characters from previous books and fall in love with them again, I was disappointed when I got to the last page. Sheer good fun!

Some laughs as is usual from Jilly but it might be time to kill off Rupert. Felt rather forced and not as entertaining as pervious books.

In Jilly Cooper’s latest, raciest novel, Rupert Campbell-Black takes centre stage in the cut-throat world of flat racing.

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.

Perhaps it's not fair to review this as I didn't finish it - or even get much past 15% - but it was really bad! Dull, predictable and lacking Jilly Cooper's redeeming wit.

Fingers brushing over well-thumbed covers. Gaze lingering on tight white jodhpurs partially obscured by wandering hands. Furtive glances through the pages to find some saucy tidbits (which I never did).

I mean we all did this… …right?

That was always the attraction of Jilly Cooper (to me at least), virtual tomes of books with covers that told you everything without needing to read a sentence.

Well now I’ve read a sentence, many sentences, many pages… a whole book even, and… …well…

…I find myself quite un-titillated.

Mount is the tenth in the series of books involving the ravishing Rupert Campbell-Black in some capacity. Gold medal winner at the Los Angeles Olympics for something involving riding horses, he now breeds them. Really breeds them. The blurb describes Mount as Cooper’s “raciest novel” but, drawing on my imaginary romantic writing expertise, I would suggest not opening with a prolonged horse mating scene, even if you think it would be enlivened by the presence of a former porn star. Phrases such as “Unless he really fancies a mare, he’s a bit inclined to leave it in and let it soak” kind of spoiled the mood, leaving me desperately searching for the nearest bucket to vomit into.

Despite this, is fair to describe Cooper as an accomplished writer, using the plot as a conveyor belt to roll in and out characters as necessary. I did not struggle to follow the story or comprehend motivations. Cooper also understands the key aspect of horse-racing: Write about the actual racing as little as possible. Characterisation is also, generally, a strong point for Cooper. I hate nearly all of them, but she gives me good reasons to hate them.

There is a feminist argument for Jilly Cooper, and it’s been made by better writers than me. As suggested above, major female characters are well-developed and more interesting than the 100 or so pages of Anastasia Steele that I troubled to read. In Mount sex is not a shameful act and a woman does not become “fallen” for having the temerity to enjoy herself. Rupert’s incandescent sexiness is presumed, with women going goggle eyed in his mere presence. Yet such responses are not miles off book after book of men falling over themselves when faced with an otherworldly female whose grace tends only to be matched by their silence.

There is a problem with the Jilly Cooper as feminism argument though. It requires you to have not read this book.

Pat had an eye for the ladies and a slick line in repartee:

"That's the second biggest thing I've had in my hand today" he told her as he washed down Love Rat's cock.

There are innuendos and outright sexual comments that sprint across the line of acceptable conduct, circuit the planet to cross the line again, then draw penis emojis on that line. Using this book as a guide to British humour would leave one with the impression that a good joke is something crude mixed with something racist, barely advanced from Fawlty Towers. An incendiary speech is one that muses over how one might say the words “Far Canal.” Shaking breasts is just as good a form of greeting as shaking hands. As for the actual sex, it’s fine, I guess, though one situation made me wonder about Cooper’s knowledge of the mechanics of it. While there is relatively limited shaming, there is unnecessary reveling in excess, with anything involving into alcohol devolving into orgiastic celebrations or, in one case, an actual orgy. Cooper appears to strongly favour characters having children in their late teens or early twenties, leading to a sub-plot of Rupert at risk of being a great grandfather at 60. Racism and homophobia are also run riot through the book, with the homophobic f word used repeatedly and with another f word in front of it on one occasion. There's also some weird phrasing:

Glancing up into Jan's film-star face, marvellously strong features, lifted by a huge smile, dark red hair visible in the V of an open-neck check shirt, Gav suddenly felt raped.

The biggest problem is Rupert Campbell-Black who, in this book at least, is a toxic waste dump. His jawline may look superb but it's made of glass, being quick with a (generally mediocre) line but completely unable to take any cheek in return. For him the epitome of coolness is throw a used cigar into someone's cleavage. He bets wildly on his own horses while complaining about the tyranny of bookies. He flies into a rage if his wife fails to pack his "lucky" shirt. He is generally abusive in tone to the women he is sleeping with, has slept with, or wants to sleep with, but is willing to say "I love you" post coitus with one such fling. He threatens anyone who abuses his animals, then gives those animals a kick. He offers an employee a new "exciting" job that coincides with a drastic cut in her pay. He loses his temper at his grandson when the latter wins on a rival's horse, having earlier fired his grandson for having sex on the job. He then goes and has sex on the job. He flies away from his own surprise birthday party, returning when someone punches him in the face, because without violence he is unable to process any form of empathy. He cries and self pities himself for situations he has put himself in, and never has to apologise.

I do not have a problem that Rupert is an awful human being. I do not have a problem that he gets everything he wishes for in the end: success, the love of his wife, and a bit of fun with another woman who conveniently moves on. You could even applaud Cooper for writing someone that is not that far from reality. 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. We are meant to be worried about the (negligible) risks he took, boo and hiss at the evilness of his enemies, and shout "hoorah for Rupert" when he wins at life. Even if he suffers no consequences, there are consequences for those whom work with him, socialise with him, and are rivaled by him. Yet at the end, everything is tied up in a nice little bow and we marvel at what a fantastic man Rupert is. I just can't buy it.

My final issue is that Cooper’s afterword, while graceful in its own way, reveals that she was overly credulous in her research. She tended to hear one side’s view of situations such as the state of horse-racing or farm expropriations in Zimbabwe, and then cack-handingly parroted those views in this book. Commenting on the lack of government investment in horse-racing jars with scenes of gigantic individual bets, the sums of prize money involved in racing, and private helicopters dotting down on birthday parties. Lines such as “Hong Kong however, which offered vast prize money, made more in tax in the day of the Hong Kong Cup that the country did in an entire year – money which paid for all the hospitals,” defy concepts of either plausibility or coherency.

So I think I will stick to looking at covers and leave the delving to others. Maybe it's not Cooper's intended fantasy, but it can be mine.

Best left to nostalgia of teenage years.
My hopes weren't high but for nostalgia (and having heard JC on Desert Island Discs & loved her) I got this for a long haul flight.
It's tedious at best, embarrassingly out of touch with nods of sexism, racism & homophobia throughout. The sex is mostly equine (each to their own but not my bag), the gags are clunky & shoe-horned into unworkable conversations, the plot sketchy & the weight of racing detail dull.
Filled a 10 hour flight but left me wishing I'd left Rupert Campbell-Black back in the 90s