Etta Bancroft – sweet, kind, still beautiful – adores racing and harbours a crush on one of its stars, the handsome high-handed owner-trainer Rupert Campbell-Black. I loved Polo and Rider and even enjoyed Wicked but what was this utter horse-crap doing on any any book shelf?

I was actually hoping to make it last for the trip back as well but unfortunately decided to keep on going to the end. 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. Also, the description inside the sleeve tells you EVERYTHING that happens up until about 650 pages in, so that was, rather, a suspense killer. Though superficially very funny, its humour barely concealed the seriousness of its intentions, which can be encapsulated in the single sentence: "Mummy says pardon is a much worse word than fuck.The syndicate is a riotous mix of village characters, who set off to the races in a minibus clanking with bottles. When her bullying husband dies, Etta's selfish, ambitious children drag her from her lovely Dorset house to live in a hideous modern bungalow in the Cotswold village of Willowwood and to act as an unpaid Nanny to their children. A magnificent portrayal of how a beautiful young girl might become the first woman ever to win the Grand National.

The filly charms everyone in the village, then tests reveal her to be a spectacularly well-bred racehorse. When Etta's home is sold out from under her and she's installed in a cramped little house close to her son and daughter-in-law, she's expected to be cook and full-time nanny for her spoiled brattish grandchildren, but the village into which she's propelled, Willowwood, has a cast of interesting characters and--because this is, after all, a Jilly Cooper novel--romance eventually blossoms, and not only for Etta. In recent years, she's succumbed to the lure of melodrama, and her books have become correspondingly more overblown and baggier. In this novel her characters are more like stereotypes, the successful business man or the ruthless horse owner willing to do anything to win.Still, when you're Jilly Cooper you can get away with everything :) I'll still read her books though. I also adored the non-human characters, particularly Chisolm the goat - her antics had me laughing out loud.

When Etta Bancroft's husband Sampson dies, her bolshy children move her to the tiny village of Willowwood. Mrs Wilkinson and Etta develop an unshakable bond, as the filly becomes a renowned racehorse and leads Etta into the world of syndicates, racing and controversy. You get wrapped around the characters’ lives and are fully submerged for the duration of the book gasping for air amidst tears of sorrow and joy in the final pages. Classic Cooper: either the perfect beach read or else something to curl up on the sofa with to keep out the encroaching autumn chill. She started her career as a journalist and wrote numerous works of non-fiction before writing several romance novels, the first of which appeared in 1975.Ridden by Rupert's delectable god-daughter, Amber, Mrs Wilkinson captivates vast crowds as she progresses from point-to-point to major races and brings fame and fortune to the syndicate, until, at last, she is entered in the Grand National. Only through sheer determination and constant complaining did I finish this diabolical excuse for a book! Alas, squaring Jilly isn't all reward--there are even more characters and even more shifting and sorting of trysts, romantic and otherwise.