Rivals - Time to have a hot bath, trim my hedge and get the MOET out

[RupertCampbellsBack]

Are there any other Jilly Cooper fans out there? I feel ridiculously excited about Rivals coming out.

[Title edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

I can broadly cope with RC-B not being blonde, but I really struggle with this casting as I don't think Alex Hassell looks cruel, I think he looks unbearably smug. It's really putting me off as it's just annoying.

Obviously I will watch and love it all though.

I think you'll find it's something like "great grey triangular tits" and definitely unshaven legs!

Yes - 'whipping out a long grey tit' to breastfeed

No idea why I enjoy these books so much as a feminist!

I listened to Imogen in my car. It's really quite racist.

And always dirty unpainted toenails in sandals...

JC is to blame for me obsessing about being over 11 stone in my 20s as she kept putting all the unattractive women on the scales and getting them to gasp in horror if it was anywhere near
took me about a decade to work out she never told us how tall the women were ( apart from Taggie who was also light as a bird despite baking amazing cakes )
However she’s always been for trimming not shaving and writing scenes were women really really enjoy sex ( though glad Taggie has been aged up )
I can’t wait - currently listening to Rivals on audiobook - the plot is so much better than I remembered
I have spent so much money since 1988 buying the books then throwing them out as someone laughed at them and secretly
buying them again 😂

What??! WHAT?!? where is this on? When is this on? Why don't I know about it? Do I need to change my dogs names to Taggie and Rupert?

Is been a good while since I've read Rivals but this has got me all excited!!

Amazon are flogging the Kindle version of Rivals for for 99p so that's my evening sorted! My tatty paperback with the red stilleto on the front is still in a packing box somewhere.

@BluebellsareBlue it's on Disney from tomorrow.

Love the bit when Taggy's mad mum walks in when R is painting T's vulva with olive oil.

Thank you the 2nd MrsRCB

I agree about Jilly writing sex scenes where women actually enjoy sex. Janey Lloyd-Fox (Nee slag about Fleet St, Janey Henderson 😁) Lizzie Vereker (just not much with James, quite understandably), Beattie Johnson, Amanda Hamilton, Maud O'Hara, Cameron Cook, to name just some of them.

Helen Cambell-Black even enjoys it once she gets with Jake (to use teenage parlance!) and Tony's wife Monica does later in life once she realises she a lesbian. Mousie in the only one in Rivals who isn't very interested I think. Well, apart from the Lady Goslings of the world, who we assume are post menopausal and therefore Jilly doesn't really draw them so um fully.

I do love that the sex in Jilly's books is (generally) portrayed as joyful and fun. Such an antidote to modern depictions of sex which often feel so grim and porn-influenced. I hope lots of teenage girls watch Rivals.

Does malise Gordon pop up in this one?

Only briefly when Rupert and Taggie visit the children.

I always think of Jilly on the 1st May and have that rhyme going round my head! Was that in TMWMHJ??

They made a dreadful version of that as well, didn’t they?! I think it had Hugh Bonneville in it!

I think of Malise as Charles Dance, in a pale suit.

It was in Rivals.

I like the look of this guy as James Vereker. He has the caring look spot on here.

I am so looking forward to this! I am so glad they’ve kept it in the 80s. I don’t have a balmain dress and some fracas to chuck on to watch so I will take to my bed and hope that some wonderful chap will pop by with quails eggs and fernet Branca (not sure what this is) and share the latest village gossip 😁

I totally agree that Rupert should be blonde. I think Iain Glenn would be perfect as an older Rupert.

My mam was a massive Mills & Boon reader & similarly (back then anyway) there was a lot of rapey scenes too, I used to read the odd chapter when I was young, it must have been an 80's thing?

I've just read Riders the rape scene is absolutely awful. I wonder if that's why they started with Rivals?

Georgette Heyer can also be quite non consensual.

I literally can not wait.

I can't describe how utterly sad I was with what happened with Taggie and RCB in the later books - I blame Jilly's personal grief but it was so unnecessary.

Like others - I read her books as a teen and Rivals has always been my comfort read. I believe many years ago my name on here was a reference to the beautiful Taggie.