Jilly Cooper died on Sunday after a fall accident, reports her publisher in a statement to the British media.
"Her unexpected death comes as a complete shock to us. We are so proud of everything she accomplished in her life", say her children in the statement.
Jilly Cooper had experienced a resurgence in the past year since a new TV version of "Rivals", one of her most famous books, was shown on the streaming service Disney+. A second season has already been recorded.
The author had her heyday from the 1980s and for several decades onwards with her books that often took place in glamorous environments and contained a lot of intrigue and sex in the plot.
Aside from "Rivals", which takes place in the media industry, books such as "Riders" and "The Man Who Made the Married Men Jealous" became bestsellers even in Sweden, even though the genre here was dismissed as women's erotic literature – an expression coined by Jan Myrdal.
Jilly Cooper started out as a columnist in British newspapers before moving on to writing fiction full-time in the 1980s. In 2024, she was knighted by King Charles as Dame Jilly Cooper.
