Best-selling novelist Dorothea Benton Frank dead at 67

Associated Press
Updated

NEW YORK (AP) — Novelist Dorothea Benton Frank, who set such best-sellers as "Sullivan's Island" in her native South Carolina, has died. She was 67.

Frank died Monday after a brief battle with leukemia, publisher William Morrow announced. For the past 30 years, she had homes in Montclair, New Jersey, and Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, part of Charleston County.

"Sullivan's Island" was her first book, completed when she was in her mid-40s and published in 1999. It was the story of a troubled woman confronting her past and was the first of many "Low Country" tales, among them "Isle of Palms" and "Shem Creek."

This combination photo of books images released by William Morrow shows novels, from left, "Queen Bee," "Same Beach, Next Year," "The Hurricane Sisters," and "The Last Original Wife," by author Dorothea Benton Frank. Frank, who set such best-sellers as “Sullivan’s Island” in her native South Carolina, died Monday, Sept., 2, 2019, after a brief battle with leukemia. She was 67. (William Morrow via AP)

Her other novels included "By Invitation Only," ''The Last Original Wife" and "All the Single Ladies." Her novel "Queen Bee" came out in May.