A tender exploration of grief and loss that is refreshing alongside Arden's characters and the setting. She masterfully explores the effects of grief and war-time and how to find moments of hope and love in that grief.

Full review and links to social will be posted as soon as possible.

I'd like to thank the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for an advanced ebook copy in exchange for an honest review.

Katherine Arden’s writing is lyrical, dark, and haunting in this fantastical speculative historical fiction. Having read her Winter Night Trilogy, I knew that she would not disappoint. She draws a dark, apocalyptic scene of World War I from the perspective of Laura, a war nurse having braved the front and her brother, Freddie a soldier experiencing the war front as the story opens. What is unclear from the beginning is what happened to Laura’s brother, Freddie.

Interspersed within the chapters comes a character by the name of Faland. He is mysterious, with motives of his own.

Overarching themes explored old world vs. new, the individual vs. systems, empathy and humanity. There are so many layers and a lot of depth to this story if you can be patient with the progression. It took awhile for me to get into the story, but after awhile, I did want to know what would happen in the end.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishing Company for providing me this Digital Advanced Readers Copy of the book!

As always, beautiful writing from Arden. Lyrical and atmospheric prose, although the read was somewhat slow-going.

Wow, this book has allusion after allusion packed into it!

On the surface, the plot is about a Canadian nurse, invalided out of the Great War, who returns to the front to find out what happened to her missing brother. Laura is no-nonsense, compassionate, pragmatic, clear-sighted.

The war was beyond human understanding and her brother Freddie has passed into a place that is not quite real, a place of surcease and damnation. He can't quite let go of everything because there is someone he doesn't want to forget.

The author's afterward states that the Great War split the world. Before the war there was still the paradigm of romance and pastoralism and afterwards the technology, inhuman systems and uncaring arbitrariness of destruction shattered the old world into bits.

Toward the beginning of the book a character reads "The Lady of Shalott". In this poem, the Lady cannot look directly at the real world. When she sees the world as it truly is, her magic mirror cracks and she knows that her doom is upon her. This character's mirror cracks as she travels into the hell of the front of the war. The author uses "cracks" several times throughout this part of the book to drive the point home.

There are more allusions to come! Probably a bunch passed over my head, but there's a figure in the book that might be a fairy king or Lucifer or a combination of both. Even his damnation cannot exceed the suffering in the world, because his damnation requires him to know the damned while the suffering in the world is random, arbitrary, impersonal. Even the devil can't do worse than the systemic destruction of the war.

Finally, the author begins to use the word "wasteland" as the poem by T.X. Eliot to describe the characters' surroundings. Eliot of course wrote the poem just after the war, and the rage and disillusionment that he expressed comes through in this book as well. In this book, forgetting and damnation are the same. Maybe we're all looking into our mirrors to avoid the real world right now, lest the curse come upon us with understanding exactly where we are and what we've done. This book has a lot to say and it says it well.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.

I absolutely loved this book. I am a huge fan of Katherine Arden's Bear and the Nightingale trilogy and I was super excited when I saw this book was coming out. Her prose are so beautiful and she has a knack for describing beautiful yet harrowing things in the most visceral way. If you have any interest in WWI or cool takes on history and mythology then this is the book for you!

Loved this. I’ve really enjoyed everything by this author. She’s an autobuy author for me. I love how every one of her stories is completely different from the others but you can still feel she’s the author. A very strong voice - one I really enjoy.

It took me a long time to read this book. The story was compelling and complex, chillingly dark and unexpectedly warm. It is not the kind of book I could race through.

I have adored Katherine Arden’s characters and world building since reading the Winternight trilogy. She has a gift for seeing the archetypal conflicts of light and darkness taking place in the muddiest of human conflicts. The overarching struggle of Warm Hands is the death of the old world and the birth of the new, both occurring simultaneously in the blood and violence of WWI.

The characters typify aspects of this struggle, often playing off one another in pairs: old v new, inhumanity v empathy.

The pair at the center of the story are the Iven siblings: older sister Laura, a wounded combat nurse, and younger brother Freddie, a traumatized Canadian soldier. The central plot revolves around Laura’s search for Freddie after she receives news that he is missing, presumed dead. Laura, in this pairing, is very much of the new world— her sharp edges and fierce determination allowed her to operate effectively as a combat nurse, even winning a Croix de Guerre. She is nevertheless brutally scarred (internally and externally) by her experiences at the front. Freddie, by contrast, is an old world romantic— a poet and a painter with no pretensions to the suicidal heroism of the trenches. He is a gentle soul, and desperately naive. His confrontation with the horrors of war does more than destroy him— it makes him long for his own destruction. The fact that both Iven siblings are, at various times, called only by their last name only serves to highlight the contrast in their natures.

Each of the protagonists is then paired with a foil, a secondary character who operates as both a steadying hand and a reflection of Laura and Freddie’s true characters. For Freddie, it is Winter, a German soldier who embodies old world heroism and the kind of moral clarity that is desperately lacking on the front. For Laura, it is Jones, an American surgeon whose all consuming passion for his work never manages to overcome his humanity and empathy.

The antagonists of the novel are also paired. WWI serves as the impersonal, brutal, new world evil. Indiscriminate destruction is its calling card. By contrast, the mysterious Faland embodies the old world evil— his attachment to his victims is deeply intimate, almost a twisted romance, as he consumes them from the inside out.

In the end, this story offers no easy answers for its characters, though it does unfailingly offer them the support of their fellow humans.

Absolutely adored and highly recommended.

LOVED THIS BOOK. I loved how the main characters were so so vulnerable, but so persistent and strong. This book made me upset, but I knew it was the reaction that was suppose to happen. They were so close they slipped through each others fingers and it made me want to scream.

This cover is so gorgeous. I really enjoyed this novel. It took my a moment to get through it but it was entertaining.

You would think that a book set in the dark, unforgiving landscape of the Great War would be filled with paralyzing tragedy and despair. But instead, Katherine Arden reminds us that while the world may have felt like it stopped, it did indeed keep going - and families, friends, and strangers alike kept coming together and being thrust apart. Set across two storylines, this book tells the story of a desperate sister trying to find her lost brother, and the same lost brother trying to find himself. As the timelines first crawl - then collide - the story picks up other characters who are on their own missions: a woman trying to salvage her hospital. A mother trying to find out what happened to her fallen son. A doctor trying to make a life where there should be none. A soldier trying to reunite with his friend. Every character introduced is rich and developed, and you can't help but root for every single one of them.

Book Summary:

Laura Iven worked hard as a field nurse during the war, saving as many soldiers as possible. That was until she was wounded and sent home. Not that coming home proved to be any safer.

Now Laura is facing the death of her parents and the reported death of her brother. But something’s wrong. There’s no evidence for his death - merely his disappearance. If Laura could find her way into the field again, she could find him.

My Review:

I’ve been hearing SO much hype about The Warm Hands of Ghosts. It’s all over the place, including a few book boxes. So, I was pretty hyped about it. While it was a good read, I don’t think it quite met my expectations.

However, one should probably take my review with a grain of salt, as I’m not always a fan of historical fiction or fantasy. I loved parts of this story, such as the overall writing (how they revealed Laura’s past was a chef’s kiss) and the atmospheric vibes from the pages.

Despite loving the overall writing style and atmosphere, I didn’t fall in love with this book, which is odd because I liked the characters just fine. Maybe it was my fear of getting attached (ghosts + wartime usually equals heartbreak, right?).

Highlights:
Historical Fiction
Magical Realism
Ghosts & Horror

Trigger Warnings:
War Time Violence & Death
Missing People
Familial Death

Katherine Arden never disappoints. I will say this book is harder to read than Winternight due to the recency of the historical events. I had to take breaks while reading. I love the dual pov from siblings. The romance plot lines for both siblings were incredibly sweet and it evened out the heaviness. I appreciate the research that went into this and spotlighting lesser known events during the time period. The fantasy aspect was so interesting. The plot twist later on was crazy!

“Mother always said the world would end, and it did.”

“The horsemen galloped, disembodied, and the old world writhed in torment, giving birth to the new.”

Sadly wars are the ending of worlds, as a whole and individually, but with it brings a rebirth. Reading all the evil that people can do to each other I couldn’t help looking for those undercurrents of hope for the future. For the death of outdated ideals and the birth of more freedoms and the spur in sciences (I know it’s dark outlook, but I got a thrill when Jones talked about blood types and transfusion).

This is also a story about people reaching out for a connection with others, family, friendship, love. Even in the bleakest times we need those connections.

“Good things don’t grow in this rotten earth.”

But I as a response to book Laura (hey you got my name too!) and with the idea of connection, sometimes good things do grow from the most foul things or experiences, shown in the relationship Freddie and Winter. I related with Laura's persistence to keep what was left of family together even when she thought Freddie was dead.

Lastly, Faland you smooth fae Lucifer mother fucker. Even as just the reader I felt like he was screwing with me. Katherine Arden this is the second time you’ve done this to me (first was Morozko in The Winternight Trilogy).

If I said any more I’d start spoiling the book. Sorry for the flow of consciousness review this book does that to you. I adore it.

I was late to read this book and I completely regret it. Thank you to the author, the publishers and NetGalley for the chance to read and review this book!

This book, however, took my breath away in a different way. It is a shocking, dark, and profoundly heartbreaking tale. It is a tragic yet painfully realistic symphony that explores the devastating consequences of war, dragging people into a bleak world that lies somewhere between the realm of the living and the world of ghosts. As you read, you can almost feel the cold shiver of the lingering ghosts, their ethereal presence haunting your every step. You touch their spectral hands and are reminded that they are long gone, leaving nothing but echoes in their wake.
Katherine Arden masterfully transports us to the darkest and most harrowing corners of the battlefield.
We find ourselves alongside soldiers trapped in cramped spaces, struggling to breathe as they are surrounded by the lifeless bodies of their comrades.
Through her vivid prose, we navigate the darkness with them

I enjoyed the author's previous trilogy so had high hopes for this one. Their writing style is beautiful and does convey tone/atmosphere very well - almost too well here. This book was just too bleak/depressing (accurate tone for war!) with far too little happening with the actual plot and character development. It became too much of a chore to try and get through, but I do look forward to trying different works from the author in the future.

Loved the theme of family in this. Definitely made you feel the utter terror of war, the depravity of grief… ugh this one hurts your heart. Need to be in the right space to read.

"Laura, I will tell you three things that are true. You may believe as you like. The first true thing is this: Your brother is alive."

After she receives her brother’s possessions but no answers, Laura Iven chooses to return to Europe and the horrors of the Great War to discover the truth behind her brother Freddie’s supposed death in the trenches. Laura, a nurse discharged from the army after taking damage from a shell, is well aware of the brutal realities of the war. What Laura finds, however, is far stranger than she could have ever expected. Whispers of a mysterious fiddler haunt the front, and Laura begins to suspect that her brother might have fallen prey to a force greater than the war…

"Ghosts have warm hands, he kept telling me, as though it were the greatest secret in the world."

It is a rare experience to realize that a book will irrevocably alter you within the first few chapters, but I knew The Warm Hands of Ghosts would become one of my all-time favorites by the sixth chapter. This was everything. I walked into this with few expectations. I’ve never read a book by Katherine Arden before, and I generally have high standards for historical fiction. However, the premise was interesting enough that I was willing to take a chance, and I think I’ll always be glad that I did. My only regret is that I didn’t pick this up sooner, leaving it languishing on my shelf for months before finally beginning it.

Arden masterfully weaves the Iven siblings’ stories together with the setting of the Great War. The War is not just a backdrop there to bring these characters together, but almost a character itself. Its presence is felt on every page and in every interaction. The addition of a fiddle-playing devil should have felt trite, but there was nothing cliche or pointless about this storyline. Faland is not the scary, all-powerful villain commonly found in fantasy books. Still, there is something incredibly sinister about how Arden writes him, even if the real villain seems to be the war itself. This is perhaps my favorite interpretation of the devil; future iterations will only bring disappointment. Arden’s depictions of the war almost put the reader there alongside the characters, who seem almost like familiar friends by the end of the book. Her prose is heartwrenching, and her characters are beautifully crafted. How Laura and Freddie are developed and given depth is amazing, but even side characters like Pim and Winter are given very solid personalities. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a detailed understanding of a cast of characters before. This was poignant, beautifully written, and hauntingly authentic. It was a privilege to read. I will never get this book out of my head.

Although I also bought the book, my thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group/Ballantine/Del Rey for generously providing me with a digital reviewer copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Whenever I read Katherine Arden’s books I realise how much of a gift she was to me and how much I love her stories. This was no exception. Discovering Arden’s writing has been a joy, in more ways than one. I loved Vasya from “The Bear And The Nightingale” and the beyond beautiful story. I loved this book just as much and our characters. I found myself emotional throughout but embraced the story like a warm blanket. Highly, highly recommend.