Francine Paula Pascal (née Rubin, May 13, 1932 – July 28, 2024) was an American author best known for her Sweet Valley series of young adult novels.
[5] Francine and John Pascal were hired as writers for the soap opera The Young Marrieds.
[5] Pascal's first novel, Hangin' Out With Cici (1977),[5] was later turned into an ABC Afterschool Special, My Mother Was Never a Kid.
[5] One day, a friend who worked in publishing gave her the idea for a series aimed at teenagers, which Pascal immediately responded to and developed as a book.
Francine Pascal later wrote the novel If Wishes Were Horses (1994), a work of autofiction about her marriage and widowhood, in which the protagonist moves to France following the death of her husband.