Her novels, including A Village Affair and Other People’s Children, drew on what Fay Weldon called a ‘gift for putting her finger on the problem of the times’ British novelist Joanna Trollope, whose portrayals of British domestic life made her one of the nation’s most widely read authors, has died at the age of 82. Trollope published more than 30 novels during a writing career that began in 1980. Her early works, written under the pseudonym Caroline Harvey, were historical romances, but from the mid-1980s onward, she turned to contemporary fiction, a shift that would define her reputation. Continue reading...

The ‘queen of romantic comedy’ has died 18 months after announcing her brain cancer diagnosis Madeleine Wickham, known for writing the bestselling novel Confessions of a Shopaholic under her pen name Sophie Kinsella, has died aged 55. Wickham, dubbed “the queen of romantic comedy” by novelist Jojo Moyes, wrote more than 30 books for adults, children and teenagers, which have sold more than 45m copies. Continue reading...