Author | Francine Pascal |
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Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Young adult fiction, romance novel, mystery, thriller |
Publisher | Random House |
Published | 1983-2003 |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) Audiobook E-book |
Sweet Valley High is a novel series created by Francine Pascal, who presided over a team of ghostwriters for the duration of the series. The books chronicle the lives of identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, who live in Sweet Valley, California, United States just outside of Los Angeles. The twins and their friends attend Sweet Valley High.
The series began in 1983 and ceased publication twenty years later with 603 books to its name. Over the years, the books were written by many ghostwriters. The books are generally classified as young adult or kids' fiction and mostly belonged to the genre of soap opera, romance novel or fantasy-adventure. The series quickly gained popularity and spawned several spin-off series, including Sweet Valley Senior Year and Sweet Valley University.
The novels Sweet Valley Confidential and The Sweet Life, which follow the characters as adults, were released in 2011 and 2012.
Ned and Alice Wakefield are the parents of a son, Steven, and identical twin daughters, Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield. Lawyer Ned Wakefield met interior-designer Alice Robertson while they were at college and flower-child Alice was engaged to conservative Hank Patman. After meeting Ned, Alice realize that she didn't love Hank and broke off their engagement; she wed Ned soon after. As they were said to have been married for 20 years when the series began, they would have married in 1963.
They named their first child, Steven, after Ned's late college friend. Shortly after Steven's birth, Ned became a partner at his law firm. Two years later Alice gave birth to Elizabeth and Jessica, whom she named after her ancestors Elisabeth and Jessamyn. They were the third set of identical twin girls in her family in six generations.
Their children grew into spitting images of their parents. Blonde, youthful Alice is often mistaken for the twins' older sister.
Ned is a general-practice lawyer and the head of a prominent Sweet Valley firm. Alice works as an interior designer at one of Sweet Valley's major design firms. Although they are quite comfortable, they are not wealthy and have no intention of becoming so. However, they are close friends of heiress Lila Fowler's family, having become better acquainted with them when the Fowlers hosted the Wakefields after a massive earthquake ripped apart Sweet Valley. Alice has two sisters: Nancy, who has daughters named Robin and Stacey; and Laura, who has a daughter named Kelly and is divorced from Kelly's violent, abusive father Greg Bates. Ned's parents live in Michigan and he has an older half-brother, Louis.