The Week Jilly Cooper Made me Cry

I'm sad to say I haven't been around in blogland for a while :-(
Being mostly over The Poisoning I've been too busy being a human pin cushion and travelling to endless tests and meetings where strangers in suits talk about me, making decisions about my life.
I've grown ever more belligerent as every possible surface of skin has been pricked and scraped with needles to see if I yelp any louder than I did a year ago when they did the same thing. I used to think it was more scientific than that but now I'm not so sure...

Combined with a sick Mac which had to be sent to computer hospital I've done no writing at all. Ideas have been buzzing around my head but my frustration is growing about not being able to sustain effort and concentration for long enough to make any real progress on anything.

The only relief in the past week has come from collapsing into bed and listening to Jilly Cooper's 'Riders' on audiobook. After hearing discussion about Rupert Campbell-Black as a great fictional alpha hero I was curious. I have to say I've been utterly drawn into the story, captivated even. Although I could never love an adulterous hero who is cruel to animals (so he won't be making it onto my fave heroes list).

You know I can't remember the last time a book made me cry.Yet Riders has made me cry twice already - once when RCB beat up a horse and the second time when a horse rescued from cruelty died. Clutching one of my rescue dogs (who has been badly abused) and stroking him, with tears streaming down my face I had to tell myself 'it's only a book, it's not real', trying desperately to pull myself out of the world Jilly Cooper had so masterfully immersed me in.
I think if I can ever make a reader care half as much about my characters as she has made me care about the horses in 'Riders' I'll consider I'll have made it as a writer...

Which books have made you cry?