Helen Fielding revisits her best-known character in the new book Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy. So, what have we learned about Bridget's life from the recently published extracts?
1) She's a widow
In a startling, headline-grabbing move, Fielding has killed off Bridget's one true love, the human rights lawyer Mark Darcy (played by Colin Firth in the films), leaving her heroine a widow. Obviously, readers get more from an unattached Bridget and something had to be done about her happy ending if things were to continue.
2) She is 51
The thirtysomething singleton who lurched from one infatuation to another with a wine glass in her hand is now middle-aged. This came as a shock.
3) Daniel Cleaver hasn't changed
If anything, Daniel (played by Hugh Grant on screen) has only become more lecherous with time. In the new extracts he's an ageing libertine, still trying to get into Bridget's big pants at every opportunity. He even offers to babysit so he can pounce when she returns home half-cut.
4) Pants are still important
No word on which style Bridget now favours – large "mummy pants" or midlife crisis g-string – but Daniel cannot stop asking her what colour ones she is wearing.
5) Bridget has two children
Mabel (five years old) and Billy (eight), both clearly named after dresses in the Boden catalogue, live with their disorganised mother in a large London house, tended to by Chloe the nanny, their leering godfather and Bridget's ever-present urban family of gay/divorced/other friends.
6) Sex is still the prime motivator
Having spent her life obsessing about her love life until she married Mark, widowed Bridget's thoughts return firmly to bonking. (She probably still calls it that.) She has a 29-year-old toyboy called Roxster. Meanwhile, Daniel's every waking moment is spent in a state of concupiscent readiness should a passing woman need rogering. (He almost certainly still calls it that.)
7) Motherhood is hard
Now a stay-at-home mum, Bridget has replaced office politics and workplace affairs with the trials of the playground, nit scares and fancying her son's PE teacher.
8) The internet isn't helping
Once a habitual voicemail checker, Bridget is now addicted to refreshing her inbox on every available platform and obsessing about her follower count on Twitter.
9) Self-help books still loom large
She's swapped Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus for French Children Don't Throw Food.
10) She can still drink for England
What with chardonnay being so unfashionable now, Bridget's tastes have moved on to cocktails, which, as she points out, make it much harder to keep track of one's unit intake.
11) Grief is a chick-lit buzz-kill
Those early books were full of haphazard optimism and goofy potential, but now Bridget's still-game pursuit of emotional fulfilment takes on a dour tone, despite all the thigh boots and mojitos. Flashes of grief pierce the comedy with heartbreaking effect.
