Marion Gibbons (née Chesney; 10 June 1936 – 30/31 December 2019) was a Scottish writer of romance and mystery novels, whose career as a published author began in 1979. She wrote numerous successful historical romance novels under a form of her maiden name, Marion Chesney, including the "Travelling Matchmaker" and "Daughters of Mannerling" series.
Using the pseudonym M. C. Beaton, she also wrote many popular mystery novels, most notably the Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth mystery series. Both of these book series have been adapted for TV. She also wrote romance novels under the pseudonyms Ann Fairfax, Jennie Tremaine, Helen Crampton, Charlotte Ward, and Sarah Chester.
Writing as Marion Chesney, her final endeavour was an Edwardian mystery series featuring Lady Rose Summer, a charming debutante with an independent streak, and Captain Harry Cathcart, an impoverished aristocrat. In an interview, she stated that she ceased writing the Edwardian series as a result of the pressure of writing for the Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth series.
Marion Chesney was born on 10 June 1936 in Glasgow, Scotland, and worked as a buyer of fiction for the Glasgow bookshop, John Smith & Son, before working at the Scottish Daily Express as a theatre critic, newspaper reporter, and editor. She married Express Middle East Correspondent Harry Scott Gibbons in 1969; they had a son, Charles. The couple moved to the Cotswolds when their son was about to go to university, assuming that he would go to Oxford, though in fact he did not.
Chesney had also lived in the USA. In later life, she divided her time between a cottage in the Cotswolds and Paris. She died at a hospital in Gloucester, England on 30 or 31 December 2019, at the age of 83.
Little Brown, Chesney's publisher at the time of her death, announced that before the author became ill, she continued to write and was working on new material for her beloved characters, Hamish Macbeth and Agatha Raisin.
The Marquis Takes a Bride (1980)
Lady Margery's Intrigue (1980)
My Lords, Ladies and Marjorie (1981)
The Ghost and Lady Alice (1982)
At The Sign of the Golden Pineapple (1987)
Miss Davenport's Christmas (1993)
The Chocolate Debutante (1998)
(some of these books were re-published much later as part of other series, often as by "M. C. Beaton")
A Marriage of Inconvenience (1992)
A Governess of Distinction (1992)
The Glitter and the Gold (1993)
Those Endearing Young Charms (1986)