M. C. Beaton

M. C. Beaton is the pen name of bestselling novelist Marion Chesney. She was a prolific writer of historical romances and small village mysteries. Born in Scotland, the author began her writing career as a fiction buyer for a Glasgow bookstore and worked as a theater critic, newspaper reporter, and editor.

The author wrote under various names, most notably as M. C. Beaton for her Hamish Macbeth and Agatha Raisin series. She also wrote under the names Sarah Chester, Helen Crampton, Ann Fairfax, Marion Gibbons, Jennie Tremaine, and Charlotte Ward.

M.C. BEATON® is a registered trademark of M.C. Beaton Limited

Featured Books By Author

Deirdre and Desire

What clever woman would want a man like Lord Harry Desire? Why, he was clearly a lummox - languid, vain, and bland. Not even his beautiful face could redeem him. But he stood to inherit a vast fortune, and that was good enough for Deirdre's father, a spendthrift vicar who arranged the match to rescue himself from imminent financial collapse. Leave it to Deirdre to contrive an escape, a quick elopement with her one true love, the dashing Guy Wentwater. But Wentwater's love proved none too true, and Deirdre found herself in a humiliating pickle. Not even Lord Harry would marry her now. But Harry had more tricks up his tailored sleeve than Deirdre ever imagined. And soon she pined only for the marriage thrown away, and for a man whose arms had grown suddenly irresistible!
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The Dukes and Desires Series

'A romance writer who deftly blends humor and adventure…[sustaining] her devoted audience to the last gasp.' – Booklist

Lovely Alice Lacey was truly incomparable, and her marriage to the Duke of Ferrant was the event of the season. Almost no one realized, however, that Alice was secretly in love with someone else - or that she had confided her feelings to a clever talking mynah bird who announces these intimacies at the moment of the couple's wedding.
Now the gossip mongers are relentless. Alice's marriage started out, and has remained, cold and impersonal, and her new husband is already rumored to be taken with another woman. Before she even realizes what is happening, Alice finds herself in a world of opposites: The man she thought she loved is something other than he seems; and the man she married, something far more than she hoped. Her last hope and redemption has to be convincing the man she wedded that they are in love. This seven-book boxset introduces you to an array of sense and sensibility characters in truly diverting tales that are the perfect escape.

The Dukes and Desires Series includes: The Desirable Duchess, Her Grace’s Passion, Pretty Polly, The Sins of Lady Dacey, My Dear Duchess, Lady Lucy's Lover, and The Scandalous Marriage.
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Dancing on the Wind

"I am going to die, she thought. It is sunny, and the whole of London is happy and joyous because I am going to die." The great Marquess herself had come to enjoy the show. "Speech! Speech!" roared the crowd. Polly raised her hands and the crowd fell silent. "My lords, ladies, and gentlemen," said Polly from the foot of the gallows. "Why is it that such as I who am poor and have nothing should hang for a petty theft when such as she," - here Polly paused and pointed straight toward the woman who’d captured her - "Mrs. Blanchard, that abbess of Covent Garden, can commit murder on the souls of innocent country girls over and over again, and yet go free!" With those words Polly said her farewells and at last, "I bid you good day, my friends. We shall meet again. For such as you who enjoy a spectacle such as this will surely roast in hell!"
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Books By
M. C. Beaton