Vampire Diaries author LJ Smith dies aged 66

Author Lisa Jane "LJ" Smith, whose young adult series "The Vampire Diaries" became one of the unexpected hits of its genre, has died at the age of 66 after a long illness.

Smith, a Florida native, published her debut books in the late 1980s to little fanfare. However, in 1990, she was commissioned by a publisher to write a young adult series that became "The Vampire Diaries".

She delivered the first four books in the series, but the publishers initially retained the copyright to her work and replaced her with a ghostwriter for several subsequent books, using her name on the books' covers with the words "created by".

Smith returned to pen another trilogy for the series in 2009-11, but her contractual dispute with publisher Alloy continued and she was fired to be replaced by a ghostwriter.

She continued to write independently for the series in the form of fan fiction, and retained a personal fanbase, some of whom boycotted subsequent official books written by other authors. In a 2011, she described the experience of being fired from her own creations as highly traumatic.

"You don’t want to get me talking about how my soul feels," she told website Bookalicious. "It feels . . . trashed. Mutilated. Worse than it's felt in a long, long, long time, like being raped in a lonely stairwell by a guy with a knife and then being blamed for it by the Supreme Court."

Regardless of Smith's fraught relationship with the books' publisher and copyright owner, "The Vampire Diaries" became a multi-format franchise, centred on a highly successful TV adaptation aired by US network The CW. Spinoff series and further ghostwritten works followed, along with a video game.

A statement announcing Smith's death described her as "a kind and gentle soul, whose brilliance, creativity, resilience and empathy, illuminated the lives of her family, friends and fans alike".

"She will be remembered for her imaginative spirit, her pioneering role in supernatural fiction, and her generosity, warmth and heart, both on and off the page."