‘WHICH one of you b***hes is my mother?’ If you know, you know. And that’s because you either read Lace back in the day or, like me, you at least read the juicy bits.

Shirley Conran’s 1982 best-seller was one of those dog-eared books the size of bricks that were passed round at school. It was of course the steamy stuff we were interested in - I never looked at a goldfish in quite the same light once Lace had done the rounds.

Lace had it all: a Swiss Alps finishing school, a friendship pact, a secret pregnancy, an orphan who becomes a film star, and passionate affairs with, among others, an Arab prince, a hot banker and an ice hockey star. It had wealth, intrigue, betrayal, romance, ambition, revelations, heartbreak, revenge. And lots of sex.

The 80s was the age of the bonkbuster - hugely popular racy novels, often with one-word titles, like Scruples, Chances and Riders, about bold, beautiful rich people behaving badly. Written by the likes of Judith Krantz, Danielle Steele and Jilly Cooper (who grew up in Ilkley), they sold in millions and were made into glossy mini-series.

As a teenage girl, I found them thrilling. Bonkbusters were of their time, and that time was the Eighties, in full excess. They offered a world where women, dripping in diamonds and hiding mysterious pasts, clinched business deals with city slickers and clinked Champagne flutes with international playboys on super yachts. What was not to like?

Now the bonkbuster mini-series is back - in a new adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s novel Rivals, which lands on Disney+ this month. Set in the cut-throat world of independent television, Rivals is, says the streaming platform’s script director Lee Mason, “lots of posh people in the 80s, in the Cotswolds”.

Describing it as “kind of premium soap”, he hopes it will provide viewers with some much-needed escapism.

A trailer for the eight-part series sees David Tennant (squire of the manor Lord Tony Baddingham) and Aiden Turner (smarmy chat show host Declan O’Hara) getting down to naked tennis matches, firing shotguns and pushing each other into a swimming pool. I’m hooked already.

Published in 1988, Rivals is the second of Dame Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire Chronicles series, set among the posh polo set. Taking centre stage is Rupert Campbell-Black; dashing womaniser, Olympic show-jumper and all-round cad. Rupert was quite the guilty pleasure of my friends who lapped up Cooper’s novels.

“What a man! Mr Darcy in a three-piece suit!” says Susan. “I loved reading about the lives of the affluent. Each book began with a map and a full list of characters - where they lived, what they did. The Instagram of the day. It was like living among them. True escapism.”

Ruth loves Jilly Cooper's books "for the pure escapism - glamorous worlds full of big, beautiful, and not so beautiful people." 

"The first book was all about the world of show jumping, I think one of her great loves are horses and her knowledge shines through in this first novel. Her characters have come and gone over the years but there are a few that have remained, becoming more rounded with each book and an endearing and enduring central character who has been foremost in some books and further in the background in others. Lots of laughs, tears and quite a lot of sex - what's not to love? "

Says Caroline: “I knew nothing about polo or horses. I grew up in inner city Leeds! But I totally lost myself in these books about sexy posh people. Rupert Campbell-Black was my first bad boy crush.”

It wasn’t just bad boys who got hearts racing in those beloved blockbusters. Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds, a family saga set on a sheep station in the Australian Outback (another dog-eared paperback passed round at school) was, for its legion of fans, all about the forbidden love between a young woman and a priest, memorably played by Richard Chamberlain in the hit mini-series.

“I think The Thorn Birds was the first time I really understood and ‘experienced’ romantic love,” says Suzanne. “I was totally besotted by Richard Chamberlain’s character, Father Ralph. But unlike my earlier TV crushes - Bodie, Starsky, Magnum - I fell in love with him, as Rachel Ward fell in love with him, and felt I was sharing her journey.

“I longed for the weekly fix, desperately rooting for him to throw off the shackles of the church and for them to live together, happily ever after. Strangely, I can’t remember if they did! I do remember unpicking the staples of the TV Times and Sellotaping its double-page picture of them kissing, right above my headboard. As a 13-year-old, I was as captivated by their relationship as I was by Richard Chamberlain’s good looks, charm and warmth.”

While the romance, glamour and sexual awakening drew us, as impressionable girls, to these sweeping sagas, they also gave us independent, ambitious female protagonists. From Emma Harte, formidable rags-to-riches businesswoman in Barbara Taylor Bradford’s A Woman of Substance to Jackie Collins’ casino queen Lucky Santangelo, these strong heroines played men at their own game.

Once the urban singletons of chick lit emerged in the 90s, blockbuster heroines became as dated as their shoulder pads. But, unlike Bridget Jones, you wouldn’t find them moping around in their pyjamas waiting for Mr Right to call.

They’d be on a jet to Monaco, clinching deals and popping the champers.