Rutshire Chronicles

The Rutshire Chronicles is a series of romantic novels by Jilly Cooper. The stories tell tales of mainly British upper-class families, as well as the show-jumping and polo crowd, in numerous different sexually charged scenarios, often laced with adultery, illegitimate children, scandal, and sometimes death. They are linked by several recurring characters, chiefly Rupert Campbell-Black, and are set in the fictional English county of Rutshire.

Some of these characters, namely Campbell-Black and numerous characters associated with him, also occur in Cooper's novel Pandora, although it is not part of the series^{[citation needed]}. The Campbell-Blacks, Lloyd-Foxes, France-Lynches, and other families from the Rutshire Chronicles also appear in Wicked! (2006). The tales are set in chronological order; however, they are readable as stand-alone novels.

In more recent years, her Rutshire Chronicles have come under fire for dated and problematic portrayals of race, homosexuality, gender roles and sexual consent.^[1][2][3]

Cooper's recent works received a variety of responses from critics, with The Guardian praising "her near-magical ability to conjure up a world and populate it with people for whom you feel a deep affection"^[4] and The Express calling Jump! "one of her most captivating novels yet."^[5]