Rivals is a 1988 romance novel by Jilly Cooper, the second book in the Rutshire Chronicles series.
- Actually, I Am Him: On Declan O'Hara's first day at Corinium, he parks his battered old Mini in the allocated spot, only for Cameron to angrily bang on the car's roof and tell him to move because it's O'Hara's spot. She's taken aback when she realises he really is O'Hara.Cameron: You can't park here, asshole.Declan: Why not?Cameron: Can't you read, you fucking dumbass? This slot's reserved for Declan O'Hara.Declan: [softly] Is it indeed? [normal voice] Then I've come to the right place. [gets out of car, shocking Cameron]
- Bad Boss: Tony's controlling and unfair to his staff. He encourages sales manager Cyril Peacock, who's only a few years from retirement, to heavily invest in a doomed company. When it goes under, Peacock is moved to become Tony's new PA. His loyalty is then ensured by the financial ruin he faces if he displeases Tony and loses the job. The narrative notes how much Tony enjoys forcing Peacock to do his dirty work.
- Barsetshire: Much of the pot centres around the town of Cotchester, in the scenic Cotswold hills. The Cotswolds are real, as is the county of Gloucestershire, but the town itself is fictional.
- Dashed Plot Line:
- Deadpan Snarker: Cameron is savagely snarky. When someone comments that there are no straight men left in New York, she refutes this because she's met at least three heterosexuals there. When Tony, who's trying to seduce her, mentions his lovely house, she points out that his wife presumably owns half of it.
- A Family Affair: At the start of the book, Tony recalls that his rival, government minister Rupert Campbell-Black, recently got into trouble when his mistress (the wife of a political colleague) discovered that he was also sleeping with her teenage daughter.
- Funetik Aksent:
- Valerie Jones speaks with an extremely upper-class accent which is represented in the spelling of her dialogue.Valerie Jones: I'd laike to wraite novels if I had the taime, but Ay'm so busy
- Freddie Jones has a strong cockney accent and his dialogue's written accordingly.Freddie Jones: No one's fallen in love wiv me for years. I'd like to be tall like your 'usband. But I got my height from my muvver and my shoulders from my Dad, and the rest 'ad to go somewhere.
- Declan O'Hara's Irish accent is stronger than his family's, and sometimes represented in dialogue - usually as "focking" when he swears.
- Valerie Jones speaks with an extremely upper-class accent which is represented in the spelling of her dialogue.
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: James Vereker is described as a handsome egotist with chronic insecurity. The narrative notes that he's obsessed with watching himself on television, to the point where he'll sometimes take a portable television into a restaurant with him. At one point he reads his own fan-mail for comfort during a sexual encounter with a secretary.
- Masturbation Means Sexual Frustration: As Tony falls asleep next to Cameron after they've had sex, he realises that she's still awake and masturbating. When he challenges her on this, she responds that if he thinks he'd actually brought her to orgasm, he's very wrong.
- Serial Homewrecker: Rupert Campbell-Black's infidelities are well known, including one occasion when he was sleeping with a senior politician's wife and, unknown to his mistress, also seducing her teenage daughter. When TV presenter Declan O'Hara moves into the area with his beautiful wife and two teenage daughters, Lizzie Vereker comments that all three will need chastity belts to keep Rupert away.
- Show Within a Show:
- Tony's initial visit to New York is to try to sell his upcoming TV series Four Men Went To Mow to an American network, initially described as a cross between James Herriot and Animal House.
- Children's show Dorothy Dove attracts complaints for Dorothy, a symbol of peace, "pecking Priscilla Pigeon and pulling out all her feathers".
- Shout-Out:
- Teenager Caitlin O'Hara namechecks one of Cooper's contemporaries, noting that "one can't obtain one's entire sexual education from the pages of Jackie Collins".
- Maud O'Hara discovers the novels of PD James and spends a week secretly reading them when she's supposedly doing housework and laundry.
- Take That!: At one point Declan throws a copy of the New English Bible out the window, decrying the translation as "a literary abomination".
- Token Minority: Tony suggests adding a Black unmarried mother to season two of Four Men Went To Mow, with the narrative noting that the IBA (Independent Broadcasting Authority) is "crazy about minority groups". An exasperated Cameron points out that Black single mothers don't become agricultural students and flippantly suggests adding a gay one-legged shepherdess instead.
- Unfocused During Intimacy: At one point James Vereker, an insecure egotist, is mentioned to be pleasuring a secretary with one hand while re-reading his own fan-mail for comfort.
