Francine Pascal, creator of the long-running Sweet Valley High book series, has died at the age of 92.
According to the New York Times, the author died in New York City as as result of lymphoma. The news was confirmed by her daughter Laurie Wenk-Pascal.
Pascal was a journalist who wrote for the TV soap The Young Marrieds in the 1960s before writing her first young adult novel in 1975. The Sweet Valley High series of books began in 1983 and told the stories of the twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield.
In 2012, Pascal told the Guardian that she wanted to write “high school as microcosm of the real world” and filled her books with heightened drama and twists, knowingly trying to appeal to a broad commercial audience. Later books also included supernatural and murder mystery elements.
“The books I had written before … were for a more sophisticated, educated audience,” she said. “But I wanted Sweet Valley to be for everyone.” She added: “There certainly was a lot of action – there’s nothing I didn’t throw in. But we like it because we don’t lead those lives.”
Pascal wrote the first 12 books herself and then worked with other writers for the others, creating outlines and a go-to bible. “People who weren’t able to stay within the lines weren’t right for it,” she said.
Pascal later brought the characters back in Sweet Valley Confidential, a novel she wrote herself in 2011, following the characters in their 30s. “This was a chance not only to catch up with these people but to see what had happened, how their lives had gone on,” she said. “And I guess I was right: Sweet Valley Confidential got on the New York Times bestseller list, and sold wonderfully.”
There were ultimately 181 books selling more than 200m copies. In 1994, a TV series adaptation began and rights were sold internationally, running for four seasons.
Diablo Cody had been tapped for a big-screen version in the late 2000s but it did not come to fruition. In 2017, a new version was put into development but word on the project has since gone quiet. Last year, the twins returned in a series of graphic novels.