British author Marcia Willett, best known for her books set in the West Country, died on June 30. She was 76. The Bookseller reported that Willett was 50 years old when she launched her career as a novelist, "having previously worked as a ballet dancer and teacher. She published 31 novels under her own name and four under the pseudonym Willa Marsh. Her final short novel, Christmas at the Keep, delivered when she was already ill with cancer, will be published posthumously in October of this year."
Willett's books include the Chadwick Family Chronicles series, as well as A Week in Winter; Seven Days in Summer; Homecomings; Reflections; Facing the Music; Sisters Under the Skin; The Garden House; Memories of the Storm; Postcards from the Past; Indian Summer; Summer on the River; and The Songbird.
Her editor at Transworld, Francesca Best, said: "Not only was Marcia Willett a perceptive and intelligent writer, she was also a warm, kind and generous woman who always had a twinkle in her eye and we will miss her greatly. We are very proud to have published her wonderful writing over so many years and are grateful that she shared her talents with us. Our thoughts are with her family, and with her many friends and loyal readers around the world."
Dinah Wiener, her literary agent, added: "Marcia was my best friend as well as a very special novelist and I am honoured to have represented her for over 30 years."
In an obituary released by Transworld, the publisher noted: "Marcia was born in Somerset but spent many of her years as an author living in a beautiful and wild corner of Devon, a part of the world that inspired the settings of many of her books. She had devoted readers all over the world, and her books have been published in 16 countries. Many of her readers have traveled to the U.K. to visit the settings of her books in the West Country."