Dame Jilly Cooper suffered a fall at her Grade II-listed home in The Cotswolds before being rushed to hospital where she died, the Daily Mail can reveal.
The novelist was taken to Gloucester Royal Hospital after a 999 call was made to the ambulance service on late Saturday afternoon.
Dame Jilly's children Felix and Emily said her death on Sunday morning, announced today, had come as a 'complete shock' as they called her the 'shining light' of their lives.
The 'Queen of the bonkbuster' author, famed for her raunchy romance novels, sold more than 12million books in her career.
She had been living in her historic home, The Chantry, in the pretty Gloucestershire village of Bisley, for over four decades, from where she produced her raunchy novels.
