Hilary Mantel, the acclaimed British writer whose Wolf Hall trilogy of historical novels were a huge hit with readers and critics alike, has died at 70, the Guardian reports.

Mantel, who was born and raised in the English county of Derbyshire, made her literary debut in 1985 with the novel Every Day Is Mother’s Day, which she followed up the next year with a sequel, Vacant Possession.

Several other novels followed, including Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, Fludd, A Place of Greater Safety, and Beyond Black, as well as a memoir, Giving Up the Ghost.

In 2009, she published Wolf Hall, a novel about the English statesman Thomas Cromwell and his role in the court of Henry VIII. The book quickly became a bestseller, and won the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

She went on to publish two sequels to the novel: Bring Up the Bodies, which also won the Booker Prize, and The Mirror & the Light, which was longlisted for the Booker. The first two books in the trilogy were adapted into a BBC Two limited series called Wolf Hall; The Mirror & the Light is currently in the works as a series as well.

In a June interview with Kirkus about her story collection, Learning To Talk, Mantel talked about writing both large-scale historical novels and more intimate, autobiographical stories.

“It’s the same self who sits down to write, but there are two different wells to draw on, if I may put it like that,” she said. “What they’re both driven by is my obsession with getting at the truth. And an appreciation that the truth is multiple, that it’s complex, it’s nuanced. It’s sometimes obtainable, sometimes not. But it’s never pure, and it’s never simple.”

Mantel’s admirers paid tribute to her on social media. On Twitter, author Damian Barr wrote, “I cannot believe the news about Hilary Mantel. With every book she redefined what words can do. She’s the only person I ever interviewed that speaks in whole, flawless paragraphs. I can’t believe we won’t have another book from her.”

And New York Times reporter Alexandra Alter tweeted, “Devastated over the loss of one of our most brilliant and inventive writers. There is no one like her.”

Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.