The ‘penny dreadful’ age of hair-raising serial stories crosses paths with the beginnings of the moving picture era in this eerily spooky and somewhat sinister novel, Shadows of the Silver Screen by Christopher Edge.  The storytelling, which is descriptive without being too verbose, takes one easily into that time period at the turn of the 20th century. It also gives one the feeling of seeing an early black and white film with mystery, villains, spooky mansions, desolate moors, and best of all ghosts. The thing that makes this story, however, is the characters.  They seem somewhat over the top, just as if they were acting in a silent film, but all together they make the story come to life.  This novel would be the perfect book for those who like something a little sinister and spooky, but don’t want blood and gore or anything too extreme that will keep them awake all night–just a little something to give one goose bumps and that tingle down the spine. Shadows of the Silver Screen fits that bill.

This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by Albert Whitman & Co.

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language:  2 religious exclamations; 2 mild obscenities.

Violence/Gore:  Scene from a silent movie described with 2 shadowed figures fighting; story of dead coming back to life and wanting to seek revenge; story of children being chained together and forced to work in a mine; character attacks someone with a knife; scene from a movie recounted of child laborer being left in a flooded mine; several appearances of ghosts; in a movie scene a character slaps another character; man shoves a girl; retelling of how a man beat a child with a whip; movie scene describing how a boy had been murdered but comes back to life; movie scene in which the villain is pushed into an open grave and characters that have come back to life start to bury him; scene where ghosts come back to life; scene describing how one person must die in order for ghost to live; character hit over the head and knocked unconscious; man assaults girl; ghost tries to take soul of character.

Sex/Nudity:  None

Mature Subject Matter:

Death, supernatural occurrences, exploitation of child laborers.

Alcohol / Drug Use:

One character states he would like to visit the pub for a drink.