Janet Dailey

Best-selling author Janet Dailey passed away “peacefully” on Saturday December 14, 2013 in her hometown of Branson, MO.  She was 69 years old.   No cause of death was released.

She was born in Iowa, but moved to Branson in 1978 with her husband Bill Dailey, who was instrumental in building Branson into an entertainment mecca.

Dailey’s novels have sold 325 million copies worldwide and include the popular “Calder” series and her “Americana” series – a book for each of the fifty states.  She is credited with writing over 155 titles.  Her first book was published in 1976.  She liked to get up at 4 AM to write, setting a goal of 15 pages per day.  This could take anywhere from 8 hours to 14 hours.

Her career hit a rough patch in 1997 when she was sued for copyright infringement by author Nora Roberts.  Dailey admitted that she took passages from Roberts’ works to write AspenGold in 1991 and Notoriousin 1996.  She apologized in 1997, saying the plagiarism occurred when her husband was undergoing cancer surgery and she was under immense stress. The lawsuit was settled out of court in 1998 for an undisclosed sum.

Her latest books, Merry Christmas, Cowboy and Bannon Brothers:  Triumphare available at the Cheshire Library.