Wicked! - Hardcover

Cooper OBE, Jilly

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593052994 ISBN 13: 9780593052990

Publisher: Bantam Press, 2006

Synopsis

At Bagley Hall, a notoriously wild, but increasingly academic, independent, crammed with the children of the famous, trouble is afoot. The ambitious and fatally attractive headmaster, Hengist Brett-Taylor, hatches a plan to share the facilities of his school with Larkminster Comprehensive - known locally, as 'Larks'. His reasons for doing so are purely financial, but he is encouraged by the opportunities the scheme gives him for frequent meetings with Janna Curtis, the dynamic new head of Larks, who has been drafted in to save, what is a fast-sinking school from closure. Janna is young, pretty, enthusiastic and vastly brave - and she will do anything to rescue her demoralized, run-down and cash-strapped school. Neither parents nor staff of either school, are too keen on this radical move, although some can see the possible financial advantages. For the students, however, it offers great opportunities to get up to even more mayhem than usual.

About this title

About the Author

Jilly Cooper was a journalist, author and media superstar. The author of many number one bestselling books, she lived in Gloucestershire where her groundbreaking Rutshire Chronicles series was set.

Awarded honorary doctorates by the Universities of Gloucestershire and Anglia Ruskin, she also won the inaugural Comedy Women in Print lifetime achievement award in 2019, and was appointed DBE in 2024 for services to literature and charity. She died in 2025.

From the Inside Flap

Two schools both in rural Larkshire, but worlds apart ...

At Bagley Hall, a wild but increasingly academic independent school, set in ravishing countryside and crammed with the children of the rich and famous,trouble is afoot.Hengist Brett-Taylor, Bagley scharismatic headmaster, is fully aware that the school will only be granted vast tax concessions if it is seen to be benefiting the local community. He therefore hatches a plan to share Bagley s splendidfacilities with Larkminster Comprehensive known locally as Larks . He is delighted that this will ensure frequent meetings with Janna Curtis, the dynamic new head of Larks, who has been drafted in to save what is a fast-sinking school.

Janna isyoung, hot-headed and vastly brave, but faces a daunting task. Her pupils areout of control, her teachers bolshy, her governors unsupportive. Larks s prime site has made it the target for greedy developers, who would like nothing better than to see the school closed down. Despite her passionate disapproval of independent schools andthe arrogant, utterly gorgeous Hengist,Janna will do anything to rescue her demoralized, cash-strapped school.She agrees to the bonding deal, although her teachers and the Bagley parents are horrified at the prospect.

For the pupils, however, the scheme provides joyous opportunity for scandalous behaviour. Soon the Larks Lotharios are in hot pursuit of the luscious long-limbed Bagley Babes. A Welsh castle is trashed during an orgiastic geography field trip, a rugby match is enlivened by a Lower Fifth streaker, and Romeo and Juliet ends with a Bagley love rat unconscious in a flowerbed. When Rupert Campbell-Black, an utterly unacademic Bagley parent, is tricked into agreeing to sit English GCSE, his outrage is equalled only by fury that his lovely wife Taggie has defiantly taken a job as school cook at Larks.

Janna, meanwhile, finds herself fatally drawn to Hengist.As the story races from the traumas of Ofsted and GCSEs to the high drama of the National Teaching Awards and a riotous visit from the Queen, will our heroine emerge with her heart and her school intact? As Posh meets Comp, both teachers and pupils not only find more in common than they ever dreamed, but discover true love where they least expect it.

By turns hilarious, heart-warming and intensely moving, Wicked! is also about the courage of desperately disadvantaged children thriving against the odds, and the heroic teachers who never give up on them. It will make you laugh and cry, and keep you hooked until the very last page.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bantam Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593052994
• ISBN 13: 9780593052990
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 864