Ghosts of Shanghai

Author(s): Julian Sedgwick

Location(s): Shanghai

Genre(s): Children

Era(s): 1920s

A powerful teen thriller with echoes of J G Ballard’s Empire of the Sun and Miracles of Life …

Obsessed with martial arts and ghost stories, Ruby is part of a gang of Chinese and ex-pat children who hide out in ruined White Cloud Temple. But the world of Shanghai in the late 1920s is driven with danger: disease, crime, espionage and revolution are sweeping the streets. And since the death of her younger brother Thomas, Ruby is stalked by another anxiety and fear.

Faced with a series of local hauntings, and armed with a lucky bookshop find – The Almanac of Distant Realms – Ruby forms the Shanghai Ghost Club to hunt down restless spirits. When best friend Faye is kidnapped by the Green Hand, Ruby must trust a mysterious stranger – and face her worst fears – in order to save her friends, and her own life. And in the ensuing fight she will catch a glimpse of the one spirit she has longed to see …

The secrets that Ruby’s father and friends have kept from her are coming back to haunt them all.

Featured in Tiny TripFiction’s Summer Reading Challenges 2021

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