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Sweet Valley High was a book series created by Francine Pascal who presided over a team of ghostwriters for the duration of the series' creation in 1983. The series ended twenty years later with over 152 books to its name. Over the years, the books were written by many ghostwriters (including Emmy-award winning screenwriter Rodney Vaccaro), and revolved around the lives of teenagers Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, twins who live in fictitious Sweet Valley, California. The series quickly gained popularity and spawned several spin-off series. The last Sweet Valley book, Sweet 18 in the series Sweet Valley Senior Year, was published in January 2003. The books are generally classified as young adult or kids' fiction, although many of the series' loyal fans are now well into their thirties.

Contents 1 Structure of the books 2 Main characters 3 Recurring characters 3.1 Ned and Alice Wakefield 4 Other characters 5 Spin-off series 5.1 Sweet Valley Kids 5.2 Sweet Valley Twins 5.2.1 Team Sweet Valley 5.2.2 The Unicorn Club 5.3 Sweet Valley Junior High 5.4 Sweet Valley Senior Year 5.5 Sweet Valley University 5.6 Elizabeth 5.7 Sweet Valley Heights 6 TV show 7 Other products 8 Criticisms 9 Pop culture references 10 Books in the series 11 External links

Originally, the books centered solely on the lives of the Wakefield twins. As the series progressed, several books were dedicated to other supporting characters within the Sweet Valley universe, although every book contained at least a subplot pertaining to Jessica or Elizabeth.

After the Magna Edition The Evil Twin, which claimed the milestone 100th book, Sweet Valley High was reformatted to contain a succession of story arcs which usually took place over three books, e.g.: the Cheerleading Miniseries, which saw the Sweet Valley cheerleading squad compete in a national competition, contained Jessica Quits the Squad, The Pom Pom Wars and V For Victory.

In addition to the regular books, the series also contained several Mystery and Super editions. Most of these stories contained outside the Sweet Valley High mainframe, with the events contained within bearing little significance to the main books and storyline.

Elizabeth Wakefield is the elder twin, having been born four minutes before Jessica. Elizabeth enjoys reading and writing, and hopes to become a journalist someday. She writes for the Sweet Valley High newspaper, The Oracle, penning the weekly gossip column, Eyes and Ears, and later Personal Profiles, a column dedicated to profiling extraordinary Sweet Valley students. Friendly and outgoing, she is known as being trustworthy and a good listener. She is serious, sensible, and smart.

On the flip side, her twin Jessica Wakefield is flighty, flirtatious and frivolous. She is into cheerleading (she was captain of the Sweet Valley High cheerleading squad), boys, and fashion. Unlike her sister, Jessica is conniving, and isn't above using underhanded schemes to get whatever it is she wants. She often gets herself into trouble, and she relies on Elizabeth to bail her out. Elizabeth loves her twin sister dearly, and usually finds Jessica's antics amusing-- even jokingly calling her "Hurricane Jessica." But sometimes Jessica goes too far, causing rifts in their relationship.

Ned and Alice Wakefield are the parents of eldest son Steven and identical twin daughters, Elizabeth and Jessica.

Ned Wakefield, a lawyer, and Alice Robertson, an interior designer, met while they were in college. Flower child Alice was engaged to conservative Henry Patman, Bruce Patman's father, at the time. After meeting Ned, she realized that she did not love Henry and broke off the engagement moments before the nuptials were to occur. The runaway bride ran barefoot to Ned's side and the two wed soon after. When the series began, they were said to have been married for twenty years.

Their first child, Steven Wakefield, was named after Ned's late college best friend. Shortly after Steven's birth, Ned became a partner at his law firm. Two years later, Alice gave birth to twin daughters, Elizabeth and Jessica, who were named after Alice's ancestors, Elisabeth and Jessamyn. They were the third set of identical twin girls in her family in six generations.

Their children grew into spitting images of their parents. Alice is often mistaken for the twins' older sister.

Ned is a common practice lawyer and the head of a prominent firm in Sweet Valley. Alice works as an interior designer at one of Sweet Valley's major design firms. Although they are quite comfortable, they aren't wealthy and have no pretensions of becoming so. They are, however, close friends of heiress Lila Fowler's family, having gotten to know them better after the Fowlers housed the Wakefields after the earthquake that nearly destroyed Sweet Valley. Alice has two sisters, Nancy, who has two daughters named Robin and Stacey; and Laura, who also has a daughter named Kelly. Laura was divorced from Kelly's father, Greg Bates, who had a violent temper and lashed out at her. Ned's parents live in Michigan, and he has a half-brother named Louis.

• Steven Wakefield, the twins' older brother
• Todd Wilkins, Elizabeth's on/off boyfriend
• Enid Rollins, Elizabeth's best friend
• Lila Fowler, Jessica's best friend and arch-rival.
• Winston Egbert, the class clown and nerd
• Ken Matthews, the quarterback
• Caroline Pierce, the school gossip who reforms.
• Olivia Davidson, arts editor for The Oracle
• Penny Ayala, editor in chief of The Oracle
• Roger Barrett Patman, a poor student who turns out to be Bruce Patman's cousin
• Jeannie West, Sandra Bacon and Annie Whitman, members of the cheerleading squad
• Tom McKay, tennis star
• Lois Waller, shy overweight student, daughter of school dietician
• Bruce Patman, a rich, handsome, selfish but extremely arrogant senior
• Robin Wilson, overweight girl who later lost weight and became a cheerleading co-captain
• Aaron Dallas, a soccer player
• Roger Collins, school newspaper staff advisor and popular English teacher
• Nora Dalton, a popular French teacher
• Maria Santelli, a cheerleader, daughter of Sweet Valley's mayor and girlfriend of Winston
• The Droids, resident Sweet Valley band, consisting of Dana Larson (vocals), Guy Chesney (keyboards), Emily Mayer (drums), Max Dellon (lead guitar) and Dan Scott (bass guitar.)
• Bill Chase, a surfer
• DeeDee Gordon, Bill's artist girlfriend
• Rick Andover, the often drunk bad boy
• Kirk Anderson, a handsome jerk

• Cara Walker, a close friend of Jessica's
• Amy Sutton, Elizabeth's best friend in the Sweet Valley Twins books and then Jessica's best friend in Sweet Valley High
• Jeffrey French, Elizabeth's ex-boyfriend who disappeared from the series
• Nicholas and Regina Morrow, wealthy but down to earth siblings. Regina is deaf, later dies.
• Suzanne Devlin, bad girl turned good
• Abbie Richardson, cartoonist for The Oracle
• Maria Slater, close friend of Elizabeth; former child star
• John Pfeifer, former sports editor for The Oracle, Jennifer's ex-boyfriend, and Lila's tormentor, later dies.
• Tricia Martin, Steven's ex-girlfriend who died from leukemia
• Betsy Martin, Tricia's older sister, who was a drug addict; Jessica's nemesis.
• AJ Morgan, Jessica's first serious boyfriend
• George Warren, Enid's, then Robin's, boyfriend
• Sam Woodruff, Jessica's boyfriend who died in a car crash that Elizabeth drove the car
• Christian Gorman, Jessica's boyfriend who died in a fight
• Barry Rork, Amy's boyfriend
• Scott Trost, Jean's boyfriend (character based upon the real-life person, Scott Trost, actor and author)
• Devon Whitelaw, Elizabeth's brief love interest
• Claire Middleton, female player on football team
• Pamela Robertson, Bruce's beautiful girlfriend
• Belinda Layton, a character from sweet valley twins who was the best female athlete in school
• Ellen Riteman, a character in the Sweet Valley Twins and Sweet Valley Kids series, who was friends with Jessica. She never appeared in Sweet Valley High.
• Janet Howell, A popular and somewhat snobbish eighth grader in the Sweet Valley Twins series. She was Lila Fowler's cousin, and was the president of the popular girl's club, the Unicorn Club; at one point, she was friends with Lois Waller when they were younger, but that broke up when they arrived in Middle School. She was never seen in the Sweet Valley High series.
• Heather Mallone, Jessica's rival, co-captain to cheerleading squad, comes later in series

The twins as seven-year-old second graders at Sweet Valley Elementary School. The series included several Special Editions and "Super Snooper" mystery books.

(Also known as Sweet Valley Twins and Friends)
The twins as twelve year old sixth-graders at Sweet Valley Middle School. This was the first spin-off to originate from SVH, and was written by ghost-writers, who wrote under the name of Jamie Suzanne.

A two part deviation from the Sweet Valley Twins series, which sees SVMS compete in the California games, Jessica as a gymnast and Elizabeth as part of the beach volley ball team.

A popular group of girls from SVMS, including Jessica. The series centers on Jessica and her other five Unicorn friends in the sixth grade.

The Unicorn Club has now expanded to include new members (which is very surprising!), and each book is written from the viewpoint of one of the members.

The twins as eighth graders. This series saw Jessica and Elizabeth attend a new school after the re-zoning of the Sweet Valley school area.

• See Sweet Valley Senior Year

• See Sweet Valley University

Chronologically the final chapter in the series and the only spin-off that did not feature Jessica directly. Continues from the plot that occurred at the end of Sweet Valley University; Elizabeth flees to London, intending to continue her university studies but ends up working as a scullery maid. The series contained six books.

This is an as yet unpublished spin-off of the franchise described by Francine Pascal in the April/May 2005 edition of Bust magazine. According to the interview, Sweet Valley Heights will feature characters from the original series living in a gated community and aged in their twenties or thirties. Some sources claim the title has been changed to Sweet Valley Confidential. The Bust interview claimed the initial publication would appear in late 2005, but as of 2007, it has not yet appeared.

• See Sweet Valley High (TV series)

A TV series based on Sweet Valley High ran for 88 episodes between 1994 and 1997. It starred real-life twins Brittany and Cynthia (formerly Doublemint Twin models) as Jessica and Elizabeth respectively. The twins also modeled for later editions of the book covers. The show ran for 4 seasons, and saw the introduction of new characters that were not in the Sweet Valley High books, including Reginald "Shred" Patman and Renata Vargas.

Many tie in products were produced for this series (primarily the Sweet Valley High Run) including a series of puzzles, a board game, audio book versions of selected SVH books, commercially available VHS and DVDs of the SVH TV Series, a CD soundtrack for the TV show, dolls and doll clothing, at least one calendar (for the year 1989/90) and books that were not part of the series (including TV tie-in reprints, a trivia book, a behind-the-scenes book about the TV show, and a "Slam Book").

The Sweet Valley series has often been criticized for its unrealistic portrayal of teenagers (although this was somewhat rectified in the Senior Year series), and its outlandish plots, especially within the original Sweet Valley High series. Some exotic examples include:

• The twins battling a werewolf in London;
• Jessica falling in love with a vampire;
• The twins and friends being chased by escaped criminals in Death Valley;
• Margo, a psychotic young woman, and later, her own twin sister Nora, attempting to murder Elizabeth in a diabolical scheme to 'replace' her;
• A former classmate of Alice Wakefield's luring them to a beauty spa with the intention of stealing Alice's face via a face transplant
• Elizabeth and a Parisian prince falling in love.
• The twins and many of their classmates being unrealistically "beautiful" in a model-like way and never having acne, oiliness, pubertal awkwardness, bodily odors, or greasy hair the way most real-life teenagers have.

• In The Simpsons episode, "Homer the Moe", after Homer tells his friends a bizarre story, Moe replies, "That is the stupidest story I ever heard, and I read the entire Sweet Valley High series".

• Veronica Mars episode 1.14 Mars vs. Mars: After a student tells Veronica that their teacher seduced her, Veronica replies by saying, "Yeah, I have that same Sweet Valley High Book." (see Suzanne Devlin)

1. Double Love
2. Secrets
3. Playing With Fire
4. Power Play
5. All Night Long
6. Dangerous Love
7. Dear Sister
8. Heartbreaker
9. Racing Hearts
10. Wrong Kind of Girl
11. Too Good To Be True
12. When Love Dies'
13. Kidnapped!
14. Deceptions
15. Promises
16. Rags to Riches
17. Love Letters
18. Head Over Heels
19. Showdown
20. Crash Landing!
21. Runaway
22. Too Much In Love
23. Say Goodbye
24. Memories
25. Nowhere to Run
26. Hostage!
27. Lovestruck
28. Alone In the Crowd
29. Bitter Rivals
30. Jealous Lies
31. Taking Sides
32. The New Jessica
33. Starting Over
34. Forbidden Love
35. Out of Control
36. Last Chance
37. Rumors
38. Leaving Home
39. Secret Admirer
40. On the Edge
41. Outcast
42. Caught in the Middle
43. Hard Choices
44. Pretenses
45. Family Secrets
46. Decisions
47. Troublemaker
48. Slam Book Fever
49. Playing for Keeps
50. Out of Reach
51. Against the Odds
52. White Lies
53. Second Chance
54. Two-Boy Weekend
55. Perfect Shot
56. Lost at Sea
57. Teacher Crush
58. Broken Hearted
59. In Love Again
60. That Fatal Night
61. Boy Trouble
62. Who's Who?
63. The New Elizabeth
64. The Ghost of Tricia Martin
65. Trouble at Home
66. Who's to Blame?
67. The Parent Plot
68. The Love Bet
69. Friend Against Friend
70. Ms. Quarterback
71. Starring Jessica!
72. Rock Star's Girl
73. Regina's Legacy
74. The Perfect Girl
75. Amy's True Love
76. Miss Teen Sweet Valley
77. Cheating to Win
78. The Dating Game
79. The Long-Lost Brother
80. The Girl They Both Loved
81. Rosa's Lie
82. Kidnapped by the Cult
83. Steven's Bride
84. The Stolen Diary
85. Soap Star
86. Jessica Against Bruce
87. My Best Friend's Boyfriend
88. Love Letters for Sale
89. Elizabeth Betrayed
90. Don't Go Home With John
91. In Love With a Prince
92. She's Not What She Seems
93. Stepsisters
94. Are We In Love?
95. The Morning After
96. The Arrest
97. The Verdict
98. The Wedding
99. Beware the Baby-Sitter
100. The Evil Twin
101. The Boyfriend War
102. Almost Married
103. Operation Love Match
104. Love and Death in London
105. A Date With a Werewolf
106. Beware the Wolfman
107. Jessica's Secret Love
108. Left At the Altar
109. Double Crossed
110. Deadly Christmas
111. Death Threat
112. Jessica Quits the Squad
113. The Pom-Pom Wars
114. "V" For Victory
115. The Treasure of Death Valley
116. Nightmare In Death Valley
117. Jessica the Genius
118. College Weekend
119. Jessica's Older Guy
120. In Love With the Enemy
121. The High School War
122. A Kiss Before Dying
123. Elizabeth's Rival
124. Meet Me at Midnight
125. Camp Killer
126. Tall, Dark and Deadly
127. Dance of Death
128. Kiss of a Killer
129. Cover Girls
130. The Model Flirt
131. Fashion Victim
132. Once Upon a Time
133. To Catch a Thief
134. Happily Ever After
135. Lila's New Flame
136. Too Hot to Handle
137. Fight Fire With Fire
138. What Jessica Wants...
139. Elizabeth is Mine
140. Please Forgive Me
141. A Picture-Perfect Prom?
142. The Big Night
143. Party Weekend

Super Editions

1. Perfect Summer
2. Special Christmas
3. Spring Break
4. Malibu Summer
5. Winter Carnival
6. Spring Fever
7. Falling for Lucas
8. Jessica Takes Manhattan
9. Last Wish
10. Mystery Date
11. Earthquake
12. Aftershock

Super Thrillers

1. Double Jeopardy
2. On the Run
3. No Place to Hide
4. Deadly Summer
5. Murder on the Line
6. Beware the Wolfman
7. A Deadly Christmas
8. Murder In Paradise
9. A Stranger In the House
10. A Killer on Board
11. "R" for Revenge

Super Stars

1. Lila's Story
2. Bruce's Story
3. Enid's Story
4. Olivia's Story
5. Todd's Story

Magna Editions

1. The Wakefields of Sweet Valley
2. The Wakefield Legacy: The Untold Story
3. A Night to Remember
4. The Evil Twin
5. Elizabeth's Secret Diary
6. Jessica's Secret Diary
7. Return of the Evil Twin
8. Elizabeth's Secret Diary Volume II
9. Jessica's Secret Diary Volume II
10. Elizabeth's Secret Diary Volume III
11. Jessica's Secret Diary Volume III
12. The Fowlers of Sweet Valley
13. The Patmans of Sweet Valley

• Sweet Valley Character Profiles
• The Dairi Burger- Sweet Valley High: The Fourth Wave of Feminism
• LiveJournal community recaps of the Sweet Valley books
• Everlasting: An Elizabeth & Todd fan site
• Sweet Valley High Forum
• Sweet Valley MySpace Page
• Sweet Valley Unlimited Source
• Sweet Valley at The Hidden Bookcase Online Resource
• Sweet Valley Fan Fiction Archive
• Sweet Valley site
• Sweet Valley LiveJournal
• Sweet Valley Slam Book
• Sweet Valley Diaries: A review blog
• Sweet Valley (TV series) (1994)
• The Closet - A mock site dedicated to airing Sweet Valley's dirty secrets
• Overview of the first 35 Sweet Valley High books
• The Lint Ball, A blog with Lesbian Interpretations of Sweet Valley High

Sweet Valley High

Main Characters

Elizabeth Wakefield | Jessica Wakefield

Secondary Characters

Ned and Alice Wakefield | Steven Wakefield | Todd Wilkins | Enid Rollins | Lila Fowler | Winston Egbert | Ken Matthews | Caroline Pierce | Olivia Davidson | Penny Ayala | Roger Barrett Patman | Jeannie West | Sandra Bacon | Annie Whitman | Tom McKay | Lois Waller

Other Characters

Cara Walker | Amy Sutton | Jeffrey French | Nicholas Morrow | Regina Morrow | Suzanne Devlin | Abbie Richardson

Series Spinoffs

Sweet Valley Senior Year | Sweet Valley University

Sweet Valley High (TV series)

Episodes: Season 1 | Season 2 | Season 3 | Season 4

Creators

Francine Pascal