Order Light and Shadow!

Publication date: 28 Oct 2026

Publisher: The Book Guild Ltd, UK

Format: Paperback

ISBN: 9781835745250

Dimensions: 129x198mm

Price: £9.99

Category: Historical Fiction

Pages: 384

History writes the legend. The truth hides in the shadows.

When Augustin Le Prince, the brilliant inventor of the world’s first moving picture, vanishes from a train just days before securing his legacy in Gilded Age New York, his desperate family must untangle a web of crippling debt, possible espionage, and devastating personal secrets to uncover the truth.

Light and Shadow is a gripping historical mystery about ambition, secrets, and the forgotten father of cinema.

History remembers Thomas Edison, but it forgot Augustin (Louis) Le Prince — the man who actually filmed the world's first movie, who seemingly vanished into thin air after getting onto the train from Dijon to Paris in 1890. Based on meticulous historical research and real-world archives, Light and Shadow is a deeply atmospheric dive into the cutthroat dawn of cinema. It is a story not just about a missing genius, but about the heavy price of ambition and the devastating weight of the secrets we keep from the ones we love.

Laurel Avery, author of Light and Shadow, is a dress historian, owner of Edwardian Recreations, and former museum educator. A native New Yorker with a love for historical detail, she has lived in Europe for over two decades and travelled extensively in France, the UK, and US in the course of researching the book.