I was very sad to hear that the legendary Barbara Mertz – who has written close to a hundred books as herself and as Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels – has passed away.
This is from the William Morrow Facebook page:
It is with great sadness we relay the news that our beloved author, Barbara Mertz, (a.k.a. Elizabeth Peters) passed away this morning at the age of 85.
Under her pseudonym as Barbara Michaels she has written twenty-nine novels of suspense. As Elizabeth Peters, she had produced more than 35 mystery-suspense novels, many of them set in Egypt and the Middle East, featuring the intrepid Amelia Peabody. Under her own name, she authored several nonfiction books about ancient Egypt, still in print today.
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be a writer today if it wasn’t for Barbara Mertz, and although I never met the woman, I’m gonna miss her. The world is a little less bright after this.
Oh, no, this is such sad news.
Hi, Jenna,
I’m not sure if I’ve read anything by Ms. Mertz, but she certainly had an interesting body of work. I imagine she would also have impacted on many other writers.
She was amazing. And someone else who obviously wrote under a couple different pseudonyms. 😉