Grace Monroe is the author of
Dark Angels (Avon
paperback original 2007). Grace Monroe is the pseudonym for the writing
team of
Maria Thomson and
Linda Watson-Brown.
Maria Thomson
was born and brought up in Edinburgh. She graduated with a law
degree in her early 20s, and a year after qualifying, was made a partner in an
Edinburgh law firm. She met her husband-to-be, Gordon, already a partner in a
rival firm, before the couple formed a law firm together. They were seen as
mavericks, due in part to their unique style and progressive marketing
techniques. Their reputation as ‘rainmakers’, and as spearheads of the new style
which clashed with how things were ‘supposed to be done’, caused considerable
controversy within the legal community, leading to discipline actions against
them and their company being struck
off in 1995 for ‘administrative mistakes’.
In response
they raised a defamation
action, which they
won, resulting in compensation and an apology from the Law Society. Ironically
Maria’s husband Gordon was at that time spokesperson for Scotland Against
Crooked Lawyers, which name was later changed to Injured by the Law.
Maria and her husband decided that they no longer wished
to practice law, and with their children
travelled the world for a year, settling briefly in
Hawaii, before returning to Scotland.
Maria has since then worked as a hypnotherapist, psychotherapist, stage hypnotist and fertility counsellor, amongst many things. Moving with her family to Kingussie, in the beautiful Monarch of the Glen country in the Scottish Highlands, has afforded Maria the chance to start the next chapter in her life, as a writer. Read our Maria Thomson interview.
After ten years as a Politics lecturer in Scottish universities, Linda
Watson-Brown began a journalistic career as a columnist at
The Scotsman. She went on to
write on a regular basis for the Daily
Mail, Big Issue, Daily Record, Sunday Herald and
Independent, amongst others, and also
developed a career as a ghost-writer. Her best-selling ghost-written book,
The Step Child, first published in
2006, has now been released in paperback, and remains a best-seller. She
is now working on a screenplay of the book, as well as continuing with
ghost-writing and fiction. She and her family live in the North-East of
Scotland, in a converted steading, formerly a pig barn.
In 2003, Maria and Linda met and became firm friends. They soon realised that
they should put their talents and experiences together and write as a team.
Dark Angels is the first novel in a planned series, with the
second Brodie MacLennan thriller to be released by Avon books in the summer of
2008. Read
our Linda Watson-Brown interview
