Jump!: Another joyful and dramatic romp from Jilly Cooper, the Sunday Times bestseller

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Alas, squaring Jilly isn't all reward--there are even more characters and even more shifting and sorting of trysts, romantic and otherwise.

Jump is totally outrageous with over the top storylines and characters and should be read with tongue firmly placed in cheek. The sexual explicitness here seems part of a wider desire to stay up to date that has, at best, mixed results. Compounding the problems this novel focuses too much on the horse world, and not enough of what makes Cooper’s novels special, the relationships between her characters. When Etta Bancroft's husband Sampson dies, her bolshy children move her to the tiny village of Willowwood.Alas, the story is not as much of a colossus as Rupert Campbell-Black is said to be in his character description.

contains all the key ingredients; a large slug of gossip, a hit of glitz, a shot of scandal and lashings of fun. Etta and Mrs Wilkinson save each other, and the filly is a catalyst redeeming or condemning (each according to their worth) a whole cast of characters. What's more, vintage Cooper – Riders, Rivals, those slender 1970s love stories Harriet and Imogen – displayed a gimlet eye for what Henry James described as "solidity of specification". There were times that just hiding in the bedroom closet or not answering the phone would have seemed a more effective mode of handling things than she applied.I was actually hoping to make it last for the trip back as well but unfortunately decided to keep on going to the end. I picked this one up for fun over Christmas and never have I laughed so much (except maybe at Lula in Janet Evanovichs Stephanie Plum series of books! you will meet rich, capricious owners, obsessive trainers, gallant stable lads and lasses and tough, brave jockeys; you will fall in love with the horses, and above all with Mrs Wilkinson herself – hilarious, heroic and gutsy, she will gallop into your heart forever. I found it unnecessary - sure, include rough scenes with some bullying to emphasise the nature of some characters, but virtual rape is tough to read in any book, let alone one where it doesn't actually add to the tension of the novel.