Author of the book “Sweet Valley High” dies at the age of 92

Francine Pascal, the creator of the book series “Sweet Valley High,” has died. She was 92 years old.

According to her sister Laurie Wenk-Pascal, the author died of lymph cancer on Sunday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, the New York Times reports.

The Post has contacted Pascal’s agent.

Pascal was born on May 13, 1932 in Manhattan and grew up in Queens. She studied journalism at New York University and then worked as a freelance writer for online websites.

Her first young adult novel, Hangin’ Out With Cici, was published in 1977 and adapted for television as a special called My Mother Was Never a Kid.

Pascal and her husband John Pascal have also written scripts for the soap opera “The Young Marrieds”.

In 1983, she published the first book in the series, “Sweet Valley High,” which follows identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, who live in a fictional suburb of Los Angeles.

She previously spoke to Entertainment Weekly about how she was inspired to write the book series.

“A friend of mine had lunch with a (book) editor, a man who said, ‘Why isn’t there a ‘Dallas’ for young people?’ I thought about it and actually had to submit a book proposal. There are a lot of twins in my life. People are always fascinated by twins. You’ll never be alone,” Pascal said in 2019.

She continued: “I was thinking about it, and this other soap opera was on my mind that I couldn’t sell. I sat down and wrote a (character) bible and the first 12 stories. It went quickly because it was such a fertile idea. Bantam Books loved it. They ordered all 12.”

The “Sweet Valley High” series comprised 181 books before it was completed in 2003. In total, the series sold over 200 million copies worldwide.

Pascal wrote the first twelve books and then left the task of telling the story of the Wakefield twins to a team of authors.

“Sweet Valley Confidential” and “The Sweet Life,” which follow the characters as adults, were released in 2011 and 2012.

There was also a television series called “Sweet Valley High” starring twins Brittany Daniel and Cynthia Daniel. The series ran for four seasons in syndication and on UPN from 1994 to 1997.

In her 2019 interview with EW, Pascal revealed what she told the ghostwriters who took over the book series.

“‘Don’t do anything about it – just do what I say.’ That’s right!” she said. “Because I trusted myself and (the publisher) trusted me, and we just kept going.”

“It was mostly very young, new writers,” Pascal continued. “The plot outlines were not chapter by chapter, but more like acts. Don’t forget, they already had the bible where I had written deep into the twins’ lives and their backgrounds. With the characters, you knew what they liked, you knew what the walls in their room (looked like), every single detail about them. The writers had to use those (guidelines) and follow them strictly.”

Pascal’s other notable works include the book series “Fearless”, the novels “If Wishes Were Horses” and “The Ruling Class” and the psychological thriller “Save Johanna!”.

Pascal was married to her husband John from 1965 until his death in 1981. He was 48 when he died.

She leaves behind two daughters, six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.