This book blew me away and also took away my ability to form sentences for awhile, so this review has been a little delayed.

I knew that this would be a very different book from The Bear and the Nightingale, and yet I still had no idea what to actually expect. Arden is a very skilled writer and storyteller, but she sets out to tell a completely different type of story with a completely different style than that series, and yet it still completely worked for me.

This book gets off to a bit of a slow start, as it establishes its two main POVs and its cast of characters. Some of these are introduced quite hurriedly, but we get to know them as the book proceeds. Ultimately, while it took me just a bit to warm up to the style of the book, I just knew that I had to keep reading because I needed to know what happened to these characters.

This book is truly haunting, and in comparison to some other wartime books with fantasy elements, it truly captures the absolute devastation, horror, and waste of this conflict in the most chilling ways. Here, the fantastical elements are utilized perfectly to illustrate the madness that comes with war, and I know I'll be thinking about this for a long time.

While lovers of the much more whimsical Winternight trilogy may at first be startled by the darkness here, I encourage those readers to give this book an opportunity to shine!

The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden is a captivating, haunting and beautifully-written novel that had me reading every chance I got.
The remarkable setting of WW1 was done so well here.
The world building was fantastic, leaving me feeling like I was there, following in these characters footsteps, watching their story unfold.
Each character has depth and voice that makes them irresistible, the plot is clever and thrilling, the writing superb and the foundation of that wonderful, rich world makes it difficult to let go.
I cannot remember the last time I became so thoroughly immersed in a story.

Thank You NetGalley and Random House, Ballantine & Del Rey for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

Katherine Arden's newest is a triumph. Building off worldbuilding skills she established in 'The Bear and the Nightingale,' she has adeptly penned a world with its feet firmly planted in ours, with its head in the clouds. Dreamy, haunting, and shockingly real, this book accomplishes everything it sets out to in a tight, page turning package. I feel so lucky that Katherine Arden is a local author and look forward to having her in our store! Her most recent is sure to be a bestseller.

This one is sorta hard to get through but I finally made it! I gave it 4 stars due I feel like the pacing is a bit slow at times. But so far, it was a great read! I recommended it!

review to come closer to publication date.

thank you to netgalley and random house publishing group for the arc.

The scope of this story was ambitious and I felt the storytelling was well done. I felt grounded in setting of the novel. At times I had trouble connecting with the characters, but I thought the statements on war and love and loss are so prescient right now. I plan to recommend it to friends. Thank you so much for the ARC!

Haunting, sublime in every way that keeps you up at night. Katherine envelopes this tale with a gorgeous pen, and speaks of the heartbreak of war that spares absolutely no one in its nightmarish wake.

It’s hard to find a collection of words so soon after reading this amazing story, so I’ll only add just how stumped I was that writing could be moving in a way that lingers into tomorrow.

This book is dark, shocking, and haunting. The way this book has captured the battlefield and the horrors of that is so vivid and heartbreaking. As tragic as it is this book is beautiful and lasting. It pulls through the muck of all that darkness and grasps at the threads of hope and love. This is one for the ages.

Actual Rating: 4,5 ⭐️

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have heard of Katherine Arden before, her novel The Bear and The Nightingale is on my TBR. The Warm Hands of Ghosts got my attention, because of the premise and I'm so happy that I got an ARC for this book. It was an amazing read.

Plot

Field nurse Laura Iven finds out of her husband Freddie's death in battle in 1918, along with his personal belongings. She volunteers at a private hospital when she goes to Belgium, where she hears rumors of haunted trenches and a hotelier who grants troops the gift of oblivion. Freddie Iven and Hans Winter, a wounded German soldier, are stuck in an overturned pillbox when they awaken in November 1917. They band together, flee, and seek safety with an enigmatic figure who seems to have the ability to make the trenches vanish. Laura and Freddie have to make the difficult decision of whether their world is worth saving or should be abandoned completely as shells rain down on Flanders.

I was hooked since the first page and I loved every second of it. The pacing was good, the characters were well done and I really loved the writing style of the author.

Characters

Laura Iven

Laura is our main character, alongside her brother Freddie. She goes back to Belgium, because she wants to find what happened to her brother. She is a very strong character. What she sees and what she has to dealt with, you know how brave she can be. She does everything she can do find her brother and also the help her friend Pim.

Freddie Iven

My heart broke for him. He suffered so much during the whole novel. His chapters and his POV were the best for me. The reader could feel how hopeless and tired he was. I just want to give him a hug and protect him.

Winter

He is the German soldier Freddie met when he was trapped in the pillbox. Winter was also a character that I really loved. He truly cared for Freddie and tried to help him in every step of the way. They found each other at the worst time of their lives and try to do everything in their power to stay together.

Pim and Mary

Pim and Mary are two women that go with Laura to Belgium. Mary has a hospital that helps the soldier and Pim lost her son in the war. They are both strong women with their own flaws and dark side.

Faland

Faland was an odd character. In fact, I didn't give 5 starts to the book because of his character. I can understand why the author used him, but his character and especially the ending was a little weird for me.

Writing

The author's writing is amazing. The reader can feel how hopeless, afraid and tired the characters are during the whole novel. Seeing the characters losing their hope of a better world and seeing the damage and the violence that occur in WWI completely broke my heart. The author made an amazing job in portrayed the horror and the difficulties of the war.

Final Thoughts

I truly recommend this book. It touched me deeply and if you love the author previous work, I'm certain you will love this one.

Absolutely phenomenal! This book surprised me in so many ways and I'm so glad I took a chance on it. I'm generally not a historical fiction reader, but with the suggestion of something paranormal and Katherine Arden's name on it, I couldn't resist giving it a go.

If you're looking for something gritty and haunting, but also achingly beautiful, this is absolutely the book for you. Arden's depictions of war and trauma, grief and desperation leap off the page and grab the reader by the throat. I don't tend to get immersed in books that feel realistic, but this book had my heart in its fist the entire time.

One of the greatest successes here is how well-balanced everything is. The dual timelines are handled perfectly and I never felt myself leaning more toward one than the other. Both were equally engaging and kept me turning pages as quickly as I could. The tonal shifts are handled just as deftly as we pivot from quiet, reflective moments to moments that feel overwhelmingly loud and busy. I normally find constant shifts like that very jarring, but Arden guides the reader along so carefully that you get to experience both to the fullest.

I loved this book and can't wait to recommend it as widely as I can. If you're a fan of Arden's fantasy work and feeling apprehensive about reading something realistic, please give this one a shot anyway.

Special thanks to Del Rey for an ARC in exchange for review.

"The Warm Hands of Ghosts" is a melancholic, eerie look at World War One and its effects, and is centered on a combat nurse, Laura, who is searching for her missing brother. Told in back-and-forth chapters alternating between his point of view and hers, this novel is slow-paced in its uncertainty and grief. Laura's brother, Freddie, is haunted by a mysterious fiddler-player - a spirit? A demon? And the late Spiritualist movement plays a large role in taking this largely historical fiction book and placing it firmly within the fantasy genre. I adored this book - it was somehow sad, hopeful, and extremely kind in its execution despite its grim subject matter.

The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden — available Feb 13!

Thank you Del Rey and NetGalley for my free advance copy 🫶

Read this if you:
🦄 love historical fiction with a twist of magical realism
🏋️‍♀️ vibe with strong female characters
✨ appreciate atmospheric writing

Laura is a combat nurse during WWI, injured in the line of duty but still witnessing horrors back home in Halifax. When a crate full of her soldier brother's belongings arrives at her door with little explanation of the circumstances of his death, she starts to feel that something isn't right. Returning to Belgium to search for Freddie, Laura encounters a strange man and a swirl of rumors about his abilities — does he have something to do with Freddie's disappearance?

This book was beautifully written, on par with Arden's Winternight Trilogy. I adored Laura as a character, as well as Winter and Pim! I found the storyline to be compelling, especially Freddie and Winter's scenes, and loved the addition of a bit of sinister magic. Arden's choice to focus on an area not normally covered in WWI fiction (Flanders/Belgium) was nice as well, I always enjoy learning some history while reading. As with most historical fiction, don't skip the author's note!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

If you loved The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, then Arden’s haunting and enveloping prose will take you back to that feeling. This book is gorgeous and needs to be read and shared and remembered. Just like her Winternight trilogy, this book should be savored.

I had to think for a moment about what rating to give this book. This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2024, and sadly I was somewhat disappointed.

Objectively speaking, I think that Arden's writing is, as usual, quite beautiful and haunting. That aspect did not disappoint. However, the actual story itself, the pacing, and the aftertaste of dissatisfaction are what caused me to reduce the rating.

This book follows two siblings from Halifax: Laura and Wilfred (Freddie), back and forth between 1917 and 1918, during World War I. Laura was a nurse who was serving at a military hospital until she was injured and returned home, only for her parents to perish in an explosion in Halifax. Freddie, her brother, is serving with the Canadian army in Belgium, and he wakes to find himself buried alive with an enemy soldier and no way out.

The first 25-50% of this book is just SO slow. Glacially slow. It was really a slog to get through it. And the tone of course is extremely bleak. It is World War I after all. A horrible time, with the first modern horrors being inflicted across the world. Things picked up when Laura received her brother's things but a mystery as to how he died. Laura decides to return to the western front to find out what happened to Freddie, to discover that many soldiers are going mad, talking about a Fiddler who shows them their deepest desires, and the haunting of ghosts on the battlefield. The second half of this book was much more enjoyable, but I don't think there is much resolution about who or what the Fiddler is. There is an air of the supernatural, or possibly he is meant to be a religious figure, but it is all very obscure and it certainly wasn't clear to me even with the hints dropped here and there.

Again, Arden is a talented writer, but personally the tone and pace is so bleak and slow, respectively, that I could not possibly pick up this book and read a second time. I still can't say that I wouldn't recommend it to others. This book wasn't what I was expecting from Arden's return to writing for an adult audience.

Thank you to Del Rey for my arc.


I really enjoyed this. both haunting and sad at the same time. The Warm Hands of Ghosts takes you on this journey with Laura as she tries to find her brother. I will admit that i didn't expect this to have a magical realism aspect to it. I just assumed this was historical fiction and I've never been so happy to be wrong.

Many thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. Arden is a wonderful writer and that shines again in The Warm Hands of Ghosts.

While this is somewhat of a slow burn, it kept me engaged. It’s more character heavy and based around the brother / sister relationship and an unexpected relationship between a Canadian and German soldier during the First World War. There are different timelines that eventually converge as all characters come together.

There are some super natural / magical realism elements that open up discussion about the dark threads behind war, the human condition, memories and what makes us who we are. Some symbolism here with desire and mirroring what we want to see vs reality.

Seems this will be an excellent pick for the 2024 book clubs.

An easy 5 star review for Arden!

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an arc of The Warm Hand of Ghosts by Kathrine Arden.

This was such a vivid and beautifully written book from Arden once again enthralling me in this WWI atmosphere and characters as they did in their Russian Folklore Trilogy books.

I have to say as we once again see genocide happening to Palestinians today and a War looming on the horizon, the effects of war written by Arden are not lost nor will they unfortunately ever be as so many outcomes of war are not only horrendous for nations, but unimaginable for those entering it and experiencing it.

Following Laura as a disabled nurse able to return to the front lines to search for answers for how her brother is missing, but assumed dead was inspiring to keep your strength, courage, determination, and hope alive.

A stunning blur written between the lines of reality of war as it's higher ranks enjoy the plunder of it all and the fantasy of soldiers knowing what war is really fought for is nothing but suffering.

Freddie's chapters were devastating to say the least, but offers readers insight of wishing to be an empty husk after traumatic experiences. Either dying inside and are no longer the same person you once were or you slowly decay and forget who, what, where, nor care about this earthly vessel you were born into.

Faland's character as the mysterious Fiddler on the front lines was such a treat to devour. Even with the religious implements made, it felt like we as readers were also gorging as sin eaters to have more and more as we descended into madness with him.

Also the title for this book is so perfect as Freddie battles his past ghosts and wishing to forget, and Laura wishing her ghosts would stop haunting her, they are both able to finally accept their ghosts and live with them closely embraced to their hearts, souls, their very beings to keep moving forward.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ an easy 5 stars

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an arc of The Warm Hand of Ghosts by Kathrine Arden

This book was beautifully written. I haven’t read any other books by Katherine Arden, but they’re highly praised and after this- I might just have to give them a go. This novel was gorgeously heart wrenching. I typically find it hard to fall in love with characters throughout a standalone, especially ones this short. But that was not a problem with me through this. I cared about each character so much. This book delves into the mental trauma of war, and the way people can become a crutch to get through it. This book is a work of art. It pulled emotions out of me throughout the entire thing.

The story flips between two point of views:
the present Laura Iven, a discharged nurse who was injured and has recently been orphaned. Her brother was lost at war and is presumed dead, but there are unexplained parts to that- and Laura isn’t one to let the unexplained go.
The other perspective is told a few months in the past, following Wilfred (Freddie) Iven, a WW1 Canadian solider, and Laura’s brother. The novel follows him as he narrowly escapes death with an enemy soldier and desperately grips on to his sanity. His storyline was my favorite to follow. It was so painfully and stunningly raw and emotional.

There is also a slight paranormal fantastical element to this book. People whisper of a fantastical man: The Fiddler. He promises oblivion and it’s said that people who’ve seen him go mad trying to find him again. This aspect was perfectly woven into the storyline.

I could sing my praises about this book forever, but I’ll leave my review at this. I cannot wait for this book to come out, to see all the raving reviews from readers. This book makes me want to read more historical fiction. If this book even remotely intrigues you, give it a shot this February!

*I received this ARC from the publisher in exchange for my review.

I was really excited to read The Warm Hands of Ghosts as I'm a fan of Katherine Arden's other work, and while I think the positives of this are broady in-line with elements I loved in her Russian trilogy, there is something missing here that did not resonate with me on the same level.

What initially captured me about this book and what continued to capture me as I read it was the rather unique premise. The blurring of lines between fantasy and reality, the evocation of religious concepts - particularly those of hell and the devil - was both engaging and particularly fitting for a war novel. I was completely enraptured by the character of Faland from the first introduction until the end and every scene with him felt like a treat, the sort of thing that I can rely Arden to deliver on.

Additionally, It is inarguable that Arden has a particular skill for creating a sense of place. Her ability to evoke setting and atmosphere with words sweeps you up in the story from page one and you are always fully grounded in the story. She has a wonderful knack for detail and rich imagery that aid with this, not to mention generally smooth and effective prose. I also think she's always been good at creating a wide variety of character types that feel both real and unique, something that was present here as well as in her past works.

However, despite all of this something about this book fell a bit flat for me starting around the halfway mark and continuing throughout. There were a number of factors that fed into this - relationships that were never given the time to properly develop and either felt rushed or empty, narrators that never felt as interesting or complex as the side characters they interacted with, and a central concept that never fully came into itself. It is this last one that is the most significant, as I felt myself thinking "maybe she's bitten off a bit more than she can chew" towards the end. I very much understood the message that was intended here about war, suffering, the concepts of winners and losers in such a war, and how this shapes the public conception of the world itself. Yet this always felt a bit half-baked, never going as deep as I was hoping for. The book starts to feel a bit repetitive at parts and while I could imagine this could be in part purposeful (what is war if not a sort of groundhog day?) the way it is done here did not lend itself to being particularly engaging.

I do think this is a well written book about a topic that doesn't get nearly as much attention as other parts of modern history, but I came a way a bit disappointed having expected something more fleshed out.

This is one of those rare books that is difficult to pick up and difficult to put down. From reading Arden's account, it seems she had a similar experience writing it. I'll give fair warning that if you're an older sibling as I am, or if you've ever had to witness someone you love gradually lose ground to their internal battles, this book will probably rip your heart out in a thousand different ways.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Warm Hands of Ghosts is largely inspired by Will Bird's memoir, Ghosts Have Warm Hands: A Memoir of the Great War, 1916-1919, in which he tells the story of how the ghost of his brother saved his life on multiple occasions during The Great War. As such, some of the themes in Arden's book involve the clash between Victorian spirituality and the horrors of modern warfare. Additionally, the book considers the personal bonds formed in such conditions--the lengths people will go to for the ones they care for, facing choices that will lead them into the dark and ruin them. Arden's book is thematically consistent with first-hand accounts in that it seems to agree with them on this: sometimes people make sacrifices for seemingly noble causes, only to lose anyway. This is true about war and it is true about love.

I'm also impressed that Arden interrogates the nuances of the devil (as he is understood in Western mythology). Faland, as he is named in this story, is handsome and charming and deceptive and all those standards you see the devil depicted as in other stories. But he's also so unbearably human. In a world that sends its children to the trenches, in a world that considers the human soul a number and little more--how can the devil be distinguished from the ruthlessness of humanity? More importantly, how can he be rejected by the suffering soldiers who deviate from their orders, orders which command them to go against every human instinct? The devil, we remember, was also a "bad soldier".

What would you do if you were told by the world, by your own countrymen, that your life is only as valuable as the destruction you can cause before you are yourself destroyed? If you were lost and forgotten and preferred that way? If you were plagued by your memories, by bitterness, rage, even love? What if someone--gentle in a harsh world--came up to you and told you that they could take it all away, and in exchange they'd honor your soul by forcing others to feel your joys and sorrows? You'd leave some mark on the world, but if nothing else, you'd be treasured by one being in a way that others refused to. It'd be tempting, no? Oblivion for justice. Your soul in exchange for someone to remember you.

I think it's terribly fitting to imagine The Great War in terms of the fantastical. Some things are seemingly beyond rationality, beyond comprehension. How better to represent the disconnect, between the world as we think it is and the world as it actually is, than to imagine there is something more than the world? I'm an atheist myself, but I can see why it's so appealing for people in distress to lean into the comfort of mythology, legends, and folklore. We are storytellers, humans. A great example of this very human tendency is in the legend of The Wild Men of No Man's Land, which is briefly mentioned in Arden's book.

I loved these characters, and it made it all the more painful to see them suffer in irrevocable ways. Freddie, for his endless love and selflessness. Winter, for his pragmatism and martyrish tendencies. Jones, for his reason and integrity. And even Pim, for her quiet determination and surprising ruthlessness.

The war demands a high price of everyone. You cannot enter it and not come out in some ways a villain, in some ways a martyr. It's how you leverage yourself that matters. It's about what you're willing to give up, how you are willing to change, that determines your survival. Nothing will ever be the same, and you have to decide if it's worth it anyway.

And I think that's why I struggled with Laura's chapters, and with her character more generally. Unlike the other characters, she isn't challenged to the same extent. She's never forced to make difficult, irrevocable choices. Any time she is faced with a hard decision, other characters make those hard choices for her. It's almost too easy, how she slips through the cracks while others are forced to offer pieces of themselves to just barely survive. So if you find yourself also struggling with Laura's chapters, I advise you to push through. The other characters, and the larger story, make it worth it.

There's different types of love in this story: love for a stranger, love for an enemy, love for a friend, love for a sibling, and romantic love. What I appreciated most about Arden's book is that all of these types of love are treated with equal care and given equal weight. All of these types of love are treasured and life-changing. All of them are changed and made ugly by the circumstances. None is more pure or virtuous than another. I'm a huge fan of stories in which 'love saves the day', but what intrigued me so much about this story is that one of its morals is 'love saves, but love also destroys, and either way, there is something gained and something lost--but it doesn't matter what love does, because people will keep choosing it regardless'. And Faland knows it.

Overall:
Well, I highlighted half the book, if that's any indication.
I loved this. I hated this. I loved it more than I hated it.
I know there are some scenes in this book that will stay with me for a long time, if not forever.
So, yes, this has my recommendation. For anyone who's intrigued by war stories, or character-driven stories. For anyone who enjoyed Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross and wouldn't mind something grittier.
Easily one of my top books this year, and a good book to end the year with. I'll be buying a physical copy in 2024!