Francine Pascal, best known for her Sweet Valley High book series, has tragically passed away on Subday at age 92. Her daughter Laurie Wenk-Pascal confirmed the author’s death to The New York Times, stating that Pascal died in New York City in New York-Presbyterian Hospital due to lymphoma, a type of cancer. The renowned author has many works but she is most famous for the aforementioned book series as it sold over 200 million copies and got adapted into a hit TV show. She may be physically gone but she still lives on through her work and her loved ones.
More About Francine Pascal
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Pascal, born in New York in 1932, has studied journalism at New York University. Afterwards, she worked for several publications including True Confessions and Cosmopolitan. She stepped foot into writing by writing for the soap opera The Young Marrieds with her late husband, John Pascal, who died in 1981. She then wrote her first young adult novel Hangin’ Out With Cici in 1977, and was instantly adapted into a TV special. She also wrote My First Love and Other Disasters and The Hand-Me-Down-Kid in addition to adult novels Save Johanna! before she started writing the Sweet Valley High in 1983.
More About the Sweet Valley High Series
Sweet Valley High is about blonde Californian identical twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield and the series tells their story. The books were aimed to make the teen version of 1980s soap Dallas after Pascal’s friend pointed out that there was no teen version of it. The author wanted the series to be for everyone, with 181 books produced in the span of two decades. She wrote about the twins’ lives at different ages and some spin-offs had the twins intertwined with murder and supernatural occurrences. Pascal wrote the first 12 books herself and then hired others to write the rest, having written the outlines herself.
The book got adapted into a TV series in 1994, which ran for four seasons, starring twins Brittany and Cynthia Daniel. The book series ended in 2003 but in 2011, Pascal herself wrote novel series Sweet Valley Confidential, which got on the New York Times bestseller list. The newer series followed the twins’ lives in their 30’s. Sweet Valley High inspired the birth of many teen drama series such as Degrassi and Beverly Hills, 90210 as well as Clueless, Dawson’s Creek and The OC. The author talked about the inspiration behind the series’ ideas, saying that some came from her three daughters. Others, however, came from her own personal experiences growing up and her fascination with twins.
There was talk in 2009 that Diablo Cody was penning a movie adaptation of the books for Universal. However, it never came to fruition. In 2017, a new version of book series was said to be in the making but words about it have gone quiet since. In 2022, the twins made a reappearance in a series of graphic novels called Sweet Valley Twins. The books were translated into 27 languages making it a bestseller worldwide.
Tributes Paid
X became filled with fans who mourned her death. Some have used Sweet Valley High as an escape from their problems and others expressed their gratitude that she made teenagers around the world happy. In addition, a representative for St. Martin’s Publishing Group expressed how the publishing group is proud to have had published the renowned series, captivating generations of teens and adults with the author’s work. Pascal is survived by her two daughters, six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
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