'Beloved and inspirational' author Joanna Trollope dies

Author Joanna Trollope has died aged 82, her family has said.

Trollope was one of the nation's most widely read authors, having published more than 30 novels during a career that began in the 1970s. Her novels include "Aga sagas" The Rector's Wife, Marrying The Mistress and Daughters-in-Law.

In a statement, Trollope's daughters Antonia and Louise said: "Our beloved and inspirational mother Joanna Trollope has died peacefully at her Oxfordshire home, on December 11, aged 82." Her literary agent James Gill said: "It is with great sadness that we learn of the passing of Joanna Trollope, one of our most cherished, acclaimed and widely enjoyed novelists. "Joanna will be mourned by her children, grandchildren, family, her countless friends and - of course - her readers." Trollope was born in Gloucestershire in 1943.

She won a scholarship to study at the University of Oxford in the 1960s. After graduating, she joined the Foreign Office before training as a teacher and then turning to writing full-time in 1980.

The author was best known for her novels set in rural middle England and centred around domestic life and relationships. Her early historical romances were written under the pseudonym Caroline Harvey, before she turned to contemporary fiction.

Her work tackled a range of topics from affairs, blended families and adoption, to parenting and marital breakdown. Trollope also took part in The Austen Project, which saw six of Jane Austen's novels retold by contemporary writers.

She wrote the first book in the series, Sense & Sensibility, published in 2013. Read more from Sky News:Man found guilty of murdering wife in rare retrialUK 'rapidly developing' plans to prepare for war In 1996, Trollope was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to literature and later made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2019.

She won the Romantic Novel of the Year in 1980 for the book Parson Harding's Daughter and in 2010 was given a lifetime achievement award from the Romantic Novelists' Association (RNA) for her services to romance. She went on to chair a number of award ceremonies, including the Costa Book Awards, formerly the Whitbread Prize, as well as the BBC National Short Story Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction..