Author of best-selling 'Sweet Valley High' book series, Francine Pascal, dies at 92

Francine Pascal, author of the famed best-selling "Sweet Valley High" book series died Sunday in Manhattan, according to reports in New York Times and Associated Press.

Pascal's daughter Laurie Wenk-Pascal told the Times that her mother, a life-long New Yorker, died of lymphoma at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital Sunday. She was 92.

Pascal was born Francine Paula Rubin, on May 13, 1932, in Manhattan. She grew up in Jamaica, Queens, per NYT and studied journalism at New York University. She started her career as a freelancer for gossip outlets such as "True Confessions" and "Modern Screen," and later for magazines such as "Cosmopolitan" and "Ladies’ Home Journal." In the 60s, she and her second husband John Pascal wrote for the soap opera “The Young Marrieds,” giving it up when the producers asked them to relocate to Los Angeles. The two also collaborated with Pascal's brother, the Tony-winning playwright Michael Stewart, on the book for “George M!” a musical about the Broadway impresario George M. Cohan.

'Sweet Valley High': The 'essence of high school'

The late author wrote her first young-adult novel in 1977, “Hangin’ Out With Cici,” about a girl who travels back in time to meet her mother when she was a teenager. The book was made into an afternoon TV special and Pascal even wrote a sequel for it. She then went on to write “My First Love and Other Disasters” (1979) and “The Hand-Me-Down Kid” (1980) before eventually penning "Sweet Valley High" in 1983. The books, which followed the lives of identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield who live in the idyllic, fictional Los Angeles suburb of Sweet Valley, became a huge hit selling more than 200 million copies worldwide, according to AP.

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“Sweet Valley is the essence of high school,” Pascal had told People magazine in 1988. “It’s that moment before reality hits, when you really do believe in the romantic values — sacrifice, love, loyalty, friendship — before you get jaded and slip off into adulthood.”

"Sweet Valley High" had more than 150 books in the series, as per AP, and ran for almost 20 years. While Pascal wrote the first 12 books in the series herself, for the rest of the books she oversaw a team of writers who helped put them together using her "bible," which consisted of detailed notes on the plot and characters of each book.

The series also had multiple spin-offs and sequels, most notably 2011's "Sweet Valley Confidential" and 2012's "The Sweet Life," which were set 10 years after the events of “Sweet Valley High” and followed the girls' as adults.

Pascal is survived by daughters Laurie and Susan, as well as six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, as per NYT.

Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@gannett.com and follow her on X @saman_shafiq7.