Author LJ Smith, whose best-selling Vampire Diaries novels were turned into a hit TV show, has died at the age of 66. Lisa Jane Smith published the original four-book series, about a love triangle involving two vampire brothers and an orphaned young woman,

LJ Smith, the author whose bestselling Vampire Diaries novels were adapted into a hit TV show, has died aged 66. The New York Times reports that the bestselling author died on March 8 in Walnut Creek, Calif, after suffering effects of a rare autoimmune disease for a decade.

She wrote seven books in a series that went on to be a hit TV show. After she was replaced by ghostwriters, she reclaimed her characters online in fan fiction.