The Muse and Other Stories of History, Mystery and Myth — Lillian Stewart Carl

In The Muse and Other Stories of History, Mystery and Myth, Lillian Stewart Carl sweeps you through a magical mystery tour of history. Thirteen stories take you from the British colonies in America and India to medieval England and revolutionary Scotland. Vividly realized worlds include Shakespeare's timeless Illyria and the very real twenty-first century. People on-screen and -off include Thomas Becket and Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Bonnie Prince Charlie, Queen Elizabeth I at her height and Ann Boleyn, her mother, at her depth. Carl's slaves and soldiers, sorcerers and sinners - and even a striped cat or two - are often sleuths and always good company. Humankind's great passions - greed, love and hate, the rights of man (and woman) - provide motives for murder and more. And lives are touched by fantasy, because along that shore between the present and the past, nothing is certain. Lillian Stewart Carl is the author of twenty-four short stories and fifteen novels, with more to come. The Muse and Other Stories includes twelve stories especially commissioned for theme anthologies and a story from a magazine, plus new Author's Notes and an essay on writing short historical mystery. "Topnotch entries include ... Lillian Stewart Carl's 'Way Down in Egypt's Land, ' a marvelous tale about 19th-century slavery." Publishers Weekly "Inspired contributions include ... Lillian Stewart Carl's 'The Necromancer's Apprentice, ' which presents an interesting solution to the actual mystery surrounding the death of Amy Robsart, wife of Elizabeth I's favorite lord, balancing wizardry with astute deductions about the political motives of those who stood to benefit." Publishers Weekly