British-American novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford, the author of the best-selling 1979 novel A Woman of Substance, has died. She was 91.

Bradford died Sunday at her home in New York following a short illness, spokesperson Maria Boyle announced.

A Woman of Substance sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and was adapted into a Channel 4 miniseries that starred Jenny Seagrove and was nominated for two Emmys.

Born in Leeds, England in 1933, Bradford started out as a journalist before picking up the pen and writing novels. Her stories often focused on rags-to-riches journeys for young women. A best-seller in both the U.K. and U.S., Bradford wrote 40 books across her career. Other popular novels of hers include Ravenscar, Cavendon and the House of Falconer series.

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Nine more of her novels were turned into television programs or films throughout her career, all of them produced by Bradford’s husband, Robert E. Bradford, an American film producer who died in 2019.

Paying tribute, her publisher and editor Lynne Drew told the BBC on Monday: “Dominating the best-seller lists, she broke new ground with her sweeping epic novels spanning generations, novels which were resolutely not romances, and she epitomized the woman of substance she created, particularly with her ruthless work ethic.”

Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of publisher HarperCollins, said: “Barbara Taylor Bradford was a truly exceptional writer whose first book, the international best-seller A Woman of Substance, changed the lives of so many who read it — and still does to this day.”

She was “a natural storyteller,” Redmayne said, as well as “a great, great friend.”