Bestselling novelist Dorothea Benton Frank dead at 67

NEW YORK – Novelist Dorothea Benton Frank, who set such bestsellers as “Sullivan’s Island” in her native South Carolina, has died. She was 67.

Frank died Monday after a brief battle with leukemia, publisher William Morrow announced. For the past 30 years, she had homes in Montclair, New Jersey, and Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina, part of Charleston County.

“Sullivan’s Island” was her first book, completed when she was in her mid-40s and published in 1999. It was the story of a troubled woman confronting her past and was the first of many “Low Country” tales, among them “Isle of Palms” and “Shem Creek.”

Her other novels included “By Invitation Only,” ”The Last Original Wife” and “All the Single Ladies.” Her novel “Queen Bee” came out in May.