Rivals stars among guests celebrating Gloucestershire's Dame Jilly Cooper
A service is taking place today (30/1) at Southwark Cathedral in her honour
Friends of Dame Jilly Cooper are arriving at a memorial service to celebrate her life in central London.
Dame Jilly died unexpectedly in October, aged 88, after sustaining injuries from a fall.
A service will take place on Friday morning at Southwark Cathedral in her honour.
Among those arriving before the service were Rivals stars Alex Hassell, Aidan Turner, Danny Dyer and Katherine Parkinson.
Dame Jilly's literary agent Felicity Blunt arrived alongside her husband, actor Stanley Tucci.
He paid tribute to the late author and told media: "She lived an incredible life.
"She also changed the lives of so many people for the better with her books, my wife being one of them.
"She was an extraordinary person, a brilliant writer, nice person and naughty."
Blunt wore a tote bag that said "I love Jilly Cooper" on it.
Other guests included former football player Tony Adams, actress Lisa Maxwell and comedian Helen Lederer.
The author was known for her steamy fiction novels which focused on scandal and adultery in upper class society, with titles including Riders, Rivals and Polo, part of The Rutshire Chronicles.
Rivals, set in the 1980s against the backdrop of the Cotswolds countryside, was recently adapted into the award-winning eponymous Disney+ TV series starring David Tennant, Alex Hassell, Emily Atack and Danny Dyer.
Dame Jilly's fictional seducer and showjumper Rupert Campbell-Black, who appears in The Rutshire Chronicles, is said to be partly based on the Queen's ex-husband Andrew Parker Bowles.
Camilla previously described the author as a "wonderfully witty and compassionate friend" and a writing "legend".
A number of Dame Jilly's novels were adapted for TV, including an ITV series of The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous with Coronation Street star Stephen Billington and Downton Abbey actor Hugh Bonneville, and a Riders series starring Marcus Gilbert during the 1990s.
She was also behind the 1970s sitcom It's Awfully Bad For Your Eyes, which starred Dame Joanna Lumley.
Dame Jilly wrote the hit novel Mount! and published her most recent work Tackle! in 2023, which she wrote on her trusty manual typewriter named Monica.
The author was made a CBE for services to literature and charity during the 2018 New Year Honours, and in 2024 was made a dame, later describing receiving the honour from the King as "orgasmic".
She is survived by her two children, Felix and Emily.