Author Barbara Taylor Bradford, best known for her debut novel "A Woman of Substance," has died at age 91. Her books often starred strong women.

She became a publishing sensation in her 40s with the tenacious saga “A Woman of Substance” and wrote more than dozen other novels.

The title of Barbara Taylor Bradford's most celebrated, and first, novel A Woman of Substance could well have been used to describe the author herself. The 1979 story of a young woman's journey from rags to riches went from bestseller to super-seller in a year and stayed on the New York Times list for 43 weeks.