Anita Shreve dies aged 71

American author Anita Shreve has died aged 71.

Shreve died on Thursday (29th March) at her home in New Hampshire after a battle with cancer. She revealed her illness in a Facebook post last year, at the time saying a "medical emergency" would prevent her from touring for her last novel, The Stars Are Fire, which will be published by Abacus on 18th April.

Little, Brown and Abacus published every one of Shreve's novels since her debut Eden Close in 1989. Her editor, Richard Beswick, told The Bookseller: "We will miss her wonderful books, warmth, humour and inspirational personality, and send all our condolences to her husband John and family. Her novels have brought deep and lasting pleasure to millions of readers and will continue to be loved for years to come."

Her US editor Jordan Pavlin of Alfred A Knopf said her "writing has touched the lives of millions of readers around the world, and she did some of her most elegant, rich, and unforgettable work in the last years of her life."

Fellow authors including Jodi Picoult, Terry McMillan and Augusten Burroughs also paid tribute to Shreve. Picoult tweeted: "Mourning the loss of #AnitaShreve — a remarkable storyteller who brought me hours of reading joy."

Born in Dedham, Massachusetts, she attended Tufts University in Massachusetts, and began writing fiction while she worked as a teacher. She also spent some time working as a journalist in Kenya.

She has sold 2.4 million books through Nielsen BookScan in the UK, for £14.9m, and her biggest seller was 2005’s Light on Snow (Abacus), which shifted 255,968 copies in paperback. 

Her novel The Pilot's Wife (Abacus) was chosen for Oprah Winfrey's book club in 1999 and was also adapted for film in 2012.  She was a finalist for the Orange Prize for The Weight of Water, which was also adapted into a film starring Liz Hurley and Sean Penn.

Shreve was married twice, mostly recently to John Osborn, and had two daughters.