Lillian Stewart Carl is a renowned author known for her work that often features paranormal/fantasy themes and is always based on mythology, history, and archaeology. She has written nineteen novels, including the Jean Fairbairn/Alasdair Cameron mystery series, which is centered around America's exile and Scotland's finest investigating all-too-living legends. Her latest novel in this series is "The Mortsafe."
Carl's short mystery and fantasy stories have also been widely published, with twelve of them collected in "Along the Rim of Time," and thirteen, including three from "Best Of the Year" anthologies, in "The Muse and Other Stories of History, Mystery, and Myth." All of Carl's work is available in electronic as well as paper form. She has also co-edited (with John Helfers) a retrospective of Lois McMaster Bujold’s science fiction work, titled "The Vorkosigan Companion," which was nominated for a Hugo award.
After starting out in science fiction and fantasy, Carl now writes contemporary novels that blend mystery, romance, and fantasy, with paranormal themes and plots based on history and archaeology. She has a knack for creating characters with a sense of humor and has been compared to authors such as Daphne du Maurier, Mary Renault, Mary Stewart, Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s colleague Charles Williams. Her fantasies are set in a mythological, alternate-history Mediterranean and India, while her contemporary novels are set in Texas, Ohio, Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, England, and Scotland.
Carl's novels have received critical acclaim, with "Of Shadows in Scarlet" praised for its "delicious mix of romance and supernatural suspense" and "Lucifer's Crown" noted for its "intriguing exploration of faith and redemption in a world that is at once both modern and timeless." "The Secret Portrait" is commended for its "mystery, history, and sexual tension," while "The Burning Glass" is celebrated for its "authentic dialect, detailed descriptions, vivid characters, and tightly woven plot." Carl's books are available in both print and electronic editions, and she has a website and a fan page on Facebook.