The Best Bonkbuster Novels

Jilly Cooper died earlier this year, one of the authors who, for many of us, epitomises the genre we’re talking about today. Are you happy to be crowned the new “queen of the bonkbuster”?

Yes, I was on the Jeremy Vine Show the other day—a radio show here in the UK which has eight million listeners. They invited me on because Dame Jilly Cooper sadly had passed. I was guest number three and I was thinking, ‘Oh no! What am I going to say by the time they  get to me?’

I’d already been in the Express, with a big headline: “all hail the new queen of the bonkbuster.” I’ve also been called “Jackie Collins for a new generation.” So I’d already had this kind of accolade two or three times, even before Jilly died, because she hadn’t written much recently. I think she only wrote 13 books, because she was just living her life, which is great. She also died brilliantly. She wasn’t ill, wasn’t in any pain. She just fell at home. She would say she went out on top because the popularity of Riders was bigger than ever. She was being recognized for everything she was, and then pop she was gone.

That happened to coincide with my latest book coming out, because it has been two-and-a-half years since the last one. We’re now at a million copies in all the various formats, across ten languages around the world. That’s a lot of books for a series that 29 publishers turned down. I was told, ‘Nobody wants to read these books anymore.’ So it’s ended up being a surprise success.

The first book was meant to be a one-off. I wrote it in seven weeks, during lockdown. The second I wrote after we’d reopened, and I was back working. I was still running a talent agency at the time, and I was also making a TV show. I was also Beverley Callard’s matron of honor in a wedding shower, so I was over in Spain doing that. I wrote that book on planes, trains and automobiles, which was really difficult. And it ends on a cliffhanger. When you have finished my latest one, do go back and read books one and two because you won’t believe the second one ends the way that it does. It’s like a ginormous soap opera, which is what the books are. They’re a soap opera within the pages of a book. That’s how I’ve written them.

And that brings us back to Jeremy Vine. They were all talking about Jilly. There was a woman on who was actually a professor of bonkbusters at a university. Jeremy was like, ‘Is that a real job?’ And she said, ‘Yes, it’s a real job. I get paid to read bonkbusters and then teach students about the art of female writing, female characters, erotic fiction etc. Can you believe it?’

She also said bonkbusters are a misnomer because they’re actually the most difficult books of all to write.

We hadn’t got to me yet. I didn’t even know what ‘misnomer’ meant. I’m working class—not even that. I was homeless. I never went to college. My English teacher said the closest that I would ever get to writing was the labels on boxes in a factory. That’s the actual pinned tweet on my Twitter! And two days ago, I was actually in a factory signing 5000 books and putting them in a box. But they’re my books, and they’re international bestsellers.

So I was dreading coming on the show, thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m on next, and they’re going to introduce me as the new queen of the bonkbuster and I’m going to be humiliated.’

The professor talked about Jackie Collins, who perfected the art form, about Shirley Conran. She talked about how Jilly Cooper was absolutely sublime. And then she said, ‘And now we have Melanie Blake.’ I couldn’t believe it. It could have been so awkward. Instead, she told me I was on her curriculum.

So I’m the last one in and the last one standing. The blockbuster genre was officially declared dead when Jackie Collins died in 2015. That’s why, when my book The Thunder Girls came out in 2019, there was no sex in it. It was basically a book about a girl group getting back together because publishers said no one was interested in bonkbusters anymore.

But when I was doing the PR for Thunder Girls all the journalists that I met…well, you can see the way I look and the way I sound. It’s all a bit Dynasty, isn’t it? They said I should write a bonkbuster. I asked why and they said, ‘You sound like you’re in one, and you look like you’re on Dallas —you basically fit that genre.’

I heard that comment so many times that it registered in my head, and then I forgot about it. Then we ended up in COVID and I had nothing to do. One of the actresses from one of the soaps I was working on said, ‘Why don’t you write that bonkbuster?’ So that’s how it all started, and that’s what leads us to today. But I never, ever expected in a million years to be mentioned alongside these books we’re about to get into. These are the books that are the only reason I am on the phone to you…

They’re books everyone was reading when I was at school in the 1980s…

Yes, and we weren’t supposed to, right? We weren’t supposed to be reading them at school. What about Lace? We were definitely not supposed to be reading that at school.

…but for anyone who is a bit younger, could you say why these books are worth reading?

The reason that you should do a deep dive is that these books are written from an era when women were grasping power. It was a power shift. That is what makes them so special and so important, especially in an era now where we’re surrounded by porn where women are treated appallingly. Sex is so degrading for women—look at Bonnie Blue, with the choking and having her hair pulled. Teachers are having to go into schools to teach boys that the porn that they see online is not how women have sex.

Before these books, women’s ambition was to get married and have children.

But in the middle gap where these books fall, there are ambitious, clever, talented women who are determined to get what they want—whether it’s to get to the top or to get revenge or some other achievement. It was an incredible shift.

I was poor as you could get. I read those books and I saw another life. They taught me that there could be another life out there, that actually there was another life out there. I mean, I’m not sure about the goldfish, and I still think we need to have a word with Shirley Conran about that, even though she’s dead. That’s not acceptable. I hope that didn’t inspire anyone…

But the rest of them inspired me back then. They’re 1980s-based, and that was really the last era of women being on top, saying, ‘We’re going to have all this greed is good stuff too. We’re going to have it all.’

If you think about the soap operas, you’ve got everything from Alexis Carrington scheming to take over Blake Carrington’s oil company in Dynasty, to Bet Lynch doing everything she could to take over the pub in Coronation Street. They’re businesswomen. They’re strong women. They’re doing everything they can to get what they want, and they’re coming from nowhere.

Jilly’s books have got lots of posh characters in them. But her books are the opposite of a class-divider; they’re a class-bringer-together. For example, if you’re working class, often you feel polo is not for you. You can’t learn to ride, you can’t ski. It’s not for you, it’s for them. Her books showed that it was for you. I did learn to ride. I did learn to ski, and though I didn’t learn polo, I have shagged some polo players.

So everything that you could wish for to give you some inspiration in this messed-up world—of fake imagery, Insta lies and grifting—is in those books. They teach you about grit, determination, dedication, self-belief and self-respect.

As a reader, I also love the fact that

a few of them are over 700 pages.

They’re enormous. You didn’t want them to end. That’s why there was also often a second book. So there was Lace and then Lace 2. The first one was ‘Which one of you bitches is my mother?’ And the second was ‘Which one of you bastards is my father?’

It’s like Mamma Mia, but years earlier. These books have never stopped inspiring, all this time later.

I once had nothing, and now I’ve got everything by following these guides. They’re a how to train or get rid of your cheating man, they’re a how to stand up for yourself, they’re a how to get yourself ahead in business, they’re a how to enjoy yourself sexually and not be used. They’re timeless. They should be on the curriculum. Well, they are on that professor’s curriculum I mentioned, but they should be on the curriculum more generally. You learn more about how to be a woman in the 21st century from these books than you will from any of the literary classics.

Let’s look at the books you’ve chosen. You’ve already said a bit about Lace (1982) by Shirley Conran, which I really enjoyed as a teenager. For anyone who doesn’t know it, what can you tell me about it?

Oh my goodness, Lace. If you only read one book from this list, it’s this one. I want you to read all of them, but if you’re only going to pick one, then go for Lace. It’s the biggest whodunnit of all, but in a way that you could never have expected.

It’s about three girls who go to a Swiss boarding school and discover boys. They’re the best of friends, and one of them gets pregnant. They all talk about it collectively and it’s written in such a way that, as the reader, you don’t which one of them it is. It’s such a clever book, so well written, I don’t think I’ve read anything like it either before or after.

They make a pact that they’re going to give up the child and that whichever one of them does well and has the money to bring the child up first will go and get her.

Then they give the child away.

Each one of them ends up being very successful. One is the editor of a top magazine. One of them is the boss of a huge charity and another one is married to a count. They’re all huge, but none of them pick up the child. It drives them apart. They’re not in touch, really, anymore.

Then the plot slips to the daughter, Lili, who ends up becoming a famous porn star (the book was ahead of its time because what are we living in now? Pornland). She tracks them down, all three of them, and brings them together in a hotel room in New York. That leads to one of the most infamous and memorable lines of all time, ‘Which one of you bitches is my mother?’

That’s the jaw drop because we still don’t know. And they leave the room and they all go off without telling her. Then there’s a knock on the door, and we find out. I always forget who it is. I’ve read the book and watched the miniseries so many times, and I always remember to forget. Then, when she turns up, you go like, ‘Oh, it was her.‘ Then you get flashbacks and so on and you go on to Lace 2. God, I love that book.

Let’s go on to your next recommendation. What can you tell me about The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1983) by Fay Weldon?

I remember this book having such an impact on me. It’s about transformation and revenge, which is a theme that seems to be developing here. These books are all about wronged women and revenge, which probably tells you a lot about these authors. It’s about not taking things lying down.

The leading female in this book is not very attractive. She has a relatively attractive husband who doesn’t treat her very well and gets tempted away by a romantic novelist. The wife then just goes on this absolute mission to destroy both of them, at the cost of actually abandoning her children, which is a bit questionable. [SPOILER ALERT]

I still remember the book to this day. I don’t want to spoil it for readers who haven’t read it, but she has surgery to actually look exactly like the woman her husband left her for. She doesn’t stop until she’s got this woman’s life. It’s one of the most remarkable stories ever, and the TV dramatization won just about every award there was.

So we have got a theme here, that these books are about wronged women getting revenge. Let’s see if it continues.

I think it does, because the next book is The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous (1993) by Jilly Cooper.

This would be my second choice after Lace. If you want an easy read, go for this one—although it’s massive (also a word that she uses about Lysander, the main character). I love this story, and I love it to this day. I love the principal idea of it. I love everything about it, and I think they should redo it over and over again.

As I said, what I like about Jilly Cooper’s books is that, as a working-class person from the wrong side of the tracks, you get taught to be able to connect with the upper classes. It’s not right, but it’s us and them. It’s like My Fair Lady. We’re Eliza Doolittle and unless we get taken over by Professor Higgins, we have nothing to do with them, and vice versa.

Whereas Jilly Cooper books bring us together, because we really like the women. They’re troubled, and they’ve got problems like us. Just because they’ve got money and they have upper-crust accents doesn’t mean their lives are perfect. They’re not.

This book is set in the countryside (it’s part of the Rutshire Chronicles). It’s about this foppish, fit, gorgeous, rich-boy loser, of which I’ve met loads, and I’m sure you have too. Life is a charm for him, but he doesn’t do anything. He’s a playboy. So he ends up being cut off by his family because they think he’s not a good representative for them. He’s sent away from central London—where he’s been gallivanting and enjoying the naughty posh boy Annabel’s lifestyle—and they banish him to their country retreat. That’s the punishment.

So he ends up in this sleepy village thinking, ‘What am I going to do here? It’s so boring.’ And then his best friend, Ferdi, comes down and says, ‘This place is a gold mine. Look around, all the women here, their husbands are cheating on them. Why don’t you teach them tennis but do deals with them? You can help them get their husbands interested in them again and make a lot of money.’ So that’s what Lysander ends up doing.

It’s like a double bubble, because the women reinvent themselves. Marigold, for example, has become frumpy, she’s not really looking after herself anymore, but as she starts to train with Lysander… Obviously, he does shag them all because it’s a bonkbuster, but as soon as they start having rumpy pumpy with him, they start bringing themselves back to who they were originally. It makes all the husbands jealous and brings them back into line.

It’s just great fun. It does exactly what it says on the tin.

Next up is Hollywood Wives (1983) by Jackie Collins, which was hugely successful—selling over 15 million copies.

Yes, Hollywood Wives was one of her biggest hits. Hollywood Wives is, I would say, the closest thing to my books. It’s about Hollywood wives who are being left behind because their husbands are cheating. It’s about how these women re-empower themselves to get back on top and become the winners and either leave their husbands and take everything they’ve got or if they keep them, they’re the ones who are in control. They then become the powerhouses, and that is the moral of the story.

These women don’t have to sit back and take it.

We’re following a complete and utter pattern with these books. It’s funny how you don’t realize there is a theme until you start talking about them.

And they all have the appeal of being set in a glamorous world, don’t they? With lots of sex.

Yes. Jilly’s is rural, and the sex is outrageous. Bonking in a hay barn is the equivalent of bonking in a penthouse in Manhattan—it’s just as extreme. I have had sex in a penthouse, but not a hay barn…I haven’t had that moment in a little village somewhere with the gorgeous Lysander. It’s on my list.

The sex is explicit in all of them. Jilly Cooper sent me a card when I had a hit with Ruthless Women, saying, ‘Welcome to the bonking club.’ It’s like an official accreditation. Also, I only found out after she died, but apparently she said that I write just like her, only filthier. And I guess I would, because I’m a new generation.

I also got an endorsement from Jackie Collins’s daughters, because I dedicated my book to her. I actually met Jackie, maybe nine days before she died. I got asked to write the foreword for Jackie’s reissues. That was a school-girl dream come true! The book that I read at school that made me believe that I could do all this has now got my name on it and my words next to hers.

That’s amazing.

It’s crazy, isn’t it? These books are of their time. That’s their charm. My books are more outrageous because mine are of my time. I’ve lived and worked in the same places these books were based in. I’ve lived in the cutthroat, backstabbing, shagging, cheating world of show business for 25 years. I’ve been at the coalface in front of everything. I’ve seen it all. They say write about what you know, and I did.

Let’s turn to your final recommendation, Widows by Lynda La Plante, the queen of the TV crime thriller.  I hadn’t heard of this book. What’s it about?

Dolly Rawlins is a mob wife. She’s married to Harry Rawlins, a gangster boss. She’s the main woman of all crime, but because she’s female, she doesn’t do any crime herself. None of the women do, they’re just the wives of the criminals, and they do as they’re told. The men are all very sexist. It’s very much that era of The Sweeney, “Hello me old China, shut it!”

But then there’s a security van heist and things go wrong. Harry and his men are caught and some of them die. With Harry dead, Dolly—who in the screen adaptation is played by the wonderful Ann Mitchell—looks at his ledgers. She finds out about a robbery they had planned. She and the other widows have nothing now, so they decide to do the job themselves.

They take it on, and they pull off this massive robbery. It’s just brilliant. It’s groundbreaking. It’s still fresh to this day. They just remade it a couple of years ago as a Hollywood movie. It was rubbish. I didn’t like it at all. But the point is, it’s still on the radar. But the original TV series, I must have watched 100 times and never got bored. It’s so good.

Again, it’s about women taking control. It’s brilliant. It’s massively complicated, and it’s brilliant. There were two books, Widows and Widows’ Revenge and a later one called She’s Out. I get the chills just talking about it because we’d never seen or read that before. We never read about women who would get together and carry out a hardcore robbery with shotguns. I think they blow up a track and rob a train, which is how they transported all the money around in the old days.

So this came out before Prime Suspect, which is how I discovered Lynda La Plante.

Widows has always been my favourite. I was actually on the set of Prime Suspect with Helen Mirren, but nothing compares to Widows. If you haven’t yet, watch Widows. Don’t even read the book. Go to the TV series because it’s faithful to the book, which a lot of them aren’t. Lynda La Plante wrote it and she also produced it with Verity Lambert. It was written, produced and made by women. Treat yourself to watching it: you will not forget it.

Thanks so much, Melanie.

You can tell I am not a woman who is grifting. I know my topic!

And make sure you finish my book because it is brilliant, if I say so myself. When you know that you’re ending something, you give it your all. Vengeful Women is the last in the series so I put everything into the book, everything.