For many long, boring years, there’s been a belief that books written for women about ‘female things’ (eg love and friendship) have no literary merit. That they’re not ‘serious’ enough or don’t have anything important to say.

One of my favourite things about Disney+’s Rivals – aside from what an absolute riot it is to watch – is that it will hopefully encourage anyone who has sneered at or been snobby about romance novels generally, and Jilly Cooper specifically, to take a long hard look at themselves.

The eight-part series is spicy, smart, funny and very knowing. It’s both a satire of and a love letter to the inhabitants of Rutshire. Audiences and critics alike have raved about it, falling for its banging 80s soundtrack, handlebar moustaches and plentiful supply of bare bums.

But its power goes beyond that. There are class battles and references to Section 28 and the Aids crisis. There’s also a chilling sexual assault scene, highlighting the misogyny and sexism that would have been scarily commonplace in the 80s. 

But it’s in its depiction of female desire – wanting to be wanted and wanting to have orgasms – and longing (never more so than in the gorgeous scenes between Katherine Parkinson and Danny Dyer) that the show is particularly refreshing and vital. There’s plenty of mutual pleasure and no moral judgment around sex; it’s about connection and pleasure.   

I challenge anyone to tell me that they aren’t among the most important things in the tapestry of life. 

While I read and utterly adored Cooper’s books as a teenager (after I graduated from Judy Blume’s Forever), I don’t know much about her legacy or how hard she worked to make her writing seem so effortless. Luckily, Kat Brown, a long-time Stylist contributor and Jilly Cooper devotee (she’s part of a book group dedicated to Cooper’s books, so she knows her stuff) was on hand to help me. 

“Jilly Cooper was a wildly successful journalist before she was an author, and she brought that eye for detail and character to her novels (which is why they were so successful and made people so cross),” Brown says. “Back in the 70s, she was hailed as the Jane Austen of our times by Harper’s magazine, and certainly her huge casts have always entertained the hell out of me and her other legions of readers because she captures her characters so well. She has a merciless eye for what makes people tick and what their weaknesses are. Sure, you can be a TV baron or a top-tier actor, but you’re still going to be fretting about something colossally mundane. She also writes hilarious, well-rounded men as well as women. Every person we meet feels totally real, which I took for granted as a younger reader. It was only as I read more widely that I appreciated what an incredibly rare skill that is.” 

Many male writers could learn a thing or two.

As I reflect on a year in TV, I’m reminded that the TV shows that have set my WhatsApp groups – and worldwide audiences – alight this year have been shows about romance. From the heart-crushing One Day in February (an adaptation of David Nicholls’s beloved 2009 book) to the more recent Nobody Wants This about the relationship between a podcaster and a rabbi. 

With Bridget Jones’s return in 2025, are we finally reaching a point where we start to value stories about love, connection, laughter and what it means to be human? I’m not convinced, but my heart will keep on hoping. 

Images: Disney+