THE WARM HANDS OF GHOSTS

As a reader of both her Winternight Trilogy and her YA series I was looking forward to reading this book. After finishing it I can say that while it may not reach the heights of the Bear and the Nightingale it does still make for a great read.

The story takes place mostly in and near the trenches of WWI but also in northeastern Canada, and an ever-changing hotel that exists in another realm. Author Katherine Arden does a really good job of mixing in these locations as she takes us to them in both the past and the present.

The plot involves a WWI nurse who returns to a frontline hospital to try and find information on her brother who has gone missing and presumed dead after another bloody battle. Is he dead or alive, or his he somewhere in between.

My only real issue with the book is that the characters didn’t interest me nearly as much as the ones from her other books. Overall though I would recommend the book. Arden does a terrific job of showing the reader the horrors soldiers faced in trench warfare during WWI. Her story and plotting also kept me interested throughout the book.

Katherine Arden can do no wrong In my book. This was a beautiful and frequently devastating book. Do not read it on public transport if you are easily moved to tears.

I enjoyed the Winternight trilogy a bit more, but that is mostly personal preference and that Ghosts is a bit heavy in tone.

I wish I knew the characters a little better. Part of me wanted to add that I wished it was a it longer, but I don’t think I do because I don’t think I could handle living any longer in the haunted trenches and hospital wards of wwI. Again a beautiful but devastating book.

3.5ish stars

Thanks to Netgally and publisher Del Rey for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I’m not quite sure how to review this book. I think it was written very well—it put me in mind of Rebecca Ross a bit in the way Arden phrased things, in the way the book seemed to take on a yearning, dreamlike quality at times. I also think Arden did a great job portraying the psychological aspects of war and how that can really mess with people’s heads in different ways. I also really liked the characters in this book. I could almost picture this book being a movie, but a movie that was made in the 1930s-40s. (The scene towards the end with Pim and Gage really screamed black-and-white desperate damsel in distress, if that makes sense.)

But the plot was kind of underwhelming? Having Faland be a sort of devil/“the Devil” character who fiddled was a little too…I don’t know what word I’m looking for. Too easy? Too on the nose? I understand that Arden was showing that the true evil of war are the horrors you live with afterwards, but if you’re going to give us evil personified as an actual person, then I felt that Laura’s confrontation with him was too quick, too easy to get her brother back after all that build up.

And the ending felt a little too wrapped up. The whole thing with Freddie and Winter was odd in that homosexuality was not ok during this time period and yet everyone seems to be ok with them? It did feel like a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” situation, like if they don’t ask, then Freddie and Winter won’t tell. But if you’re going to put two characters together who spend most of the time in the book away from each other, I feel like there needs to be more build up in person to their relationship? Like, not once does Freddie question himself, when he/Arden have never given the reader any hints to his sexuality before this. I feel like a lot more could’ve been done exploring that issue/side of things during this time period. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The way Pim’s part of the story was wrapped up—it felt like it was given such a huge build-up and then didn’t quite deliver on what seemed to be being promised. And the Parkey sisters just disappearing and giving Laura, Freddie, and Winter the house and money when they needed it most was super deus ex machina. That was way too neat a way to fix things for them.

I don’t know. I thought it was an all right book overall. It feels weird to say this, but I loved her Winternight Trilogy so much and I’m sad that this book wasn’t better than that. But I can’t think of what was truly missing that would make this book even better. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I enjoyed reading it and am glad I got an eARC but I don’t expect that I’ll end up buying a copy when it comes out. :/

I'm not typically one for war novels, but I love the author's previous work and wanted to step out of my comfort zone, even if there is still a touch of fantasy.
The prose is beautifully written and evocative. I enjoyed all of the characters and found them well-rounded, diverse personality-wise, and emotionally interesting. The author clearly researched the war, and it shows.
The only thing holding this back from a five-star read for me was the pacing of the ending. For as slow as the first three quarters were, the last sped by at a rapid pace and it gave me a bit of whiplash, not only for character development but also in relation to understanding the supernatural elements at play.
Still a wonderful read and would recommend.

I've loved Arden's books and this one is no exception. I appreciated that although the backdrop is World War II, it is not the center of the story. Great characters, interesting plot. Will be recommending it to others!

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group and Netgalley for the Advanced Reader Copy.

Arden has a gift for blending fantasy with the real world. Those who are not fans of the supernatural or fantasy but like historical fiction could still enjoy the story. The supernatural element could be seen as an allegory for PTSD, guilt, and grief.

Most historical fiction novels focus on World War II. World War I is often forgotten and so I appreciate that Katherine Arden chose to tell a story about this period. It really made me think about how there was a time when kings and emperors would fight in the wars with their soldiers. Then in WWI, and down to today, they sit cozy in their castles and chateaus to orchestrate the war while the poor, young boys fight, only to come back dead or damaged.

In <I>The Warm Hands of Ghosts</I> we follow Laura and her brother Freddie. Laura, a nurse, is injured during the war and returns home to Halifax. There she gets cryptic messages that Freddie may still be alive. After befriending Penelope, a mother grieving her son's death, Laura finds her way back to Europe to find out what happened to her brother.

Freddie befriends Hans Winter, a German solider. Together they survive No Man's Land until the mysterious Faland lures Freddie into his strange hotel.

I connected to each character in unique ways. Some characters made me feel anger and others I felt pity for. While the story does deal with dark themes, there was hope and it's a story about how love saves us from the depths of despair.

4 out of 5 Warm Hands

Wow, what a story! I have liked everything I’ve read by Katherine Arden (which is everything she has), but this one might be my favorite. It definitely gets emotional, but is also kind of cozy and absolutely heroic. I just wanted things to work out for Laura and Freddie in the end. My only complaint - I liked it so much I read it too fast and it ended too early!

If you notice this book is written by Katherine Arden and you think oh, another fantasy, prepare to have your heart torn from your body and stomped on many many times.

Good historical fiction is so well researched that you feel as though you are there. In this, the book puts you right in the middle of the horrors of the trench warfare of world war one, where whole generations were wiped out. In fact, in her acknowledgements, she thanks all those who left letters behind to tell the horror of the front lines.

The story is told in two voices, one of Laura, who has lost everyone she loves either in the war, or in the explosion that happened in Halifax, where she lost both her parents. She has been a nurse, wounded, who came back to Halifax to recover, and realizes that she isn’t sure if her brother is alive or dead, so returns to the war for him.

And the second voice is of Freddie, her brother, who is presumed dead, missing in action, but he is alive, and trying to get back to her.

And a third character, Faland, asks the question what happens when hell comes to earth. Where does the fallen angle go, but there. He has no voice, other than what others here, and the story is both told from his point of view, and not.

The book is slow moving, like slogging through mud in the trenches, but it has to be, to give the full horror of what is going on around them. Well written, well dragged out, and the characters are all horribly believable, including the generals that dine in spender while their soldiers are slaughtered for a tiny bit of gain.

Although it was hard to get through, once I had, I missed all the characters, and their lives. And it has been hard to care about any new book I pick up, the way I cared about Freddie and Laura.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review. It will be published on the 13th of February 2024

I love Katherine Arden, both her adult works and children’s works. I was so excited for something new and adult from her and it did not disappoint. I love her depictions of World War I Europe. Arden easily transport us back to this haunting era with such a beautiful and meaningful novel.

Katherine Arden weaves stories of such heartbreaking beauty and vivacity it seems almost criminal that they aren't real. To take the trauma and tragedy of WWI and make something so marvelous and sad and lovely takes a very special talent. I will travel whatever road Ms. Arden wishes to take me down and thank her endlessly for the privilege.

As a rule, I don’t read books about WWI or WWII. But I was willing to give Arden the benefit of the doubt since I enjoyed the Winternight trilogy. And I am so glad that I did. This is an absolute gut punch of a book in the best way possible!

The book follows two siblings, Laura and Freddie Iven. Both served on the front lines in Belgium during the fall of 1917. But while Laura was wounded at her hospital and discharged back to Canada, Freddie disappeared. Although her brother is listed as presumed dead, a seance (which Laura does not believe) and several cryptic letters from her former nursing colleagues suggest that all is not as it seems. A blend of (un)real horrors on and off the battlefield add further confusion, but possibly also revelation, as Freddie struggles to survive in fall 1917 and Laura returns to find closure in spring 1918.

Arden deftly conveys both the great horrors and small hopes of war without sliding into either grimdark or nostalgia. She does so by employing short chapters and truncated sentences that move the plot forward rapidly. She also bounces between two different times and POVs (i.e. Laura’s & Freddie’s). This slightly disjointed writing style helped to convey the madness of war in short bursts that prevented the heavier content from weighing the story down. It also heightened the tension deliciously as the mystery of Freddie’s fate unfolded.

I was struck most by the characters though, every one of which felt painfully real and sympathetic. There were no noble heroes and evil villains, no dramatic war-time romances. Just people (dead or alive) trying to make sense of literal hell on earth as best they can, and inevitably mucking it up along the way. This realism, in combination with Ardren’s gorgeous descriptive prose, resonated emotionally for me in a way that the recent wave of post-apocalyptic SFF novels (which cover similar themes) have not.

In my opinion, there is nothing to critique in this book. 10/10 I would not change a word! But I will note (given the undeserved vitriol in some other reviews) that this story does not have the same YA tone and characterization as the Winternight trilogy. It is darker, the MCs are morally grey, and the story structure is more complex. If you can handle that, I unreservedly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fantasy or magical realism!

Thanks to Netgalley and Del Rey for an advance copy of this ebook.

I Heard about this book on booktok and it did not disappoint. I love the main character and the dialogue. I’m very picky about my historical fiction and I could not put this one down!

4.75 Stars

“The Warm Hands of Ghosts” by Katherine Arden is an expertly woven tale of both history and the paranormal. Arden brought to life the trauma of The Great War and in her own fashion, gave us a story with multiple layers of the unknown. Freddie and Winter’s mental, emotional, and physical trauma and struggles during one of many battles of the war was engaging, tense and one that left you rooting for both men, who are from opposite sides of the conflict but brought together with a shared purpose: survival at all costs. Laura’s purpose to find what truly happened to her brother is a mixture of acceptance, hope and mystery that took her on a journey rife with trials, tribulations, ghosts, new friendships, and heartbreak.

Told in dual points of view, we first meet Laura Iven, a nurse who was wounded during a bombing and honorably discharged. She is back home in Canada when her world is turned upside down. Through cryptic letters and her missing brother’s affects returned to her in a questionable manner, she decides that she must return to the war zone in Belgium to find out what truly happened to her brother, Private Wilfred Iven. She embarks on a journey with acquaintances, Ms. Mary Borden, and Mrs. Penelope Shaw. Through the hauntings of ghosts of her past and present and a mysterious man that is spoken of only in whispers, the women journey into war torn Belgium to find answers and most of all, themselves.

Wilfred “Freddie” Iven wakes up buried in an overturned pillbox and finds himself among dead comrades and enemy soldiers alike. But he is not the only man to survive the bombing. Hans Winter, a German soldier, is wounded but also alive. Both men put aside their differences to attempt to rescue each other from certain death. With their struggles and trauma highlighted throughout their journey, both men find that their fates are intertwined to one another if they are to ever find healing and peace amongst the death and destruction of war.
I recommend this book to those who enjoy history with a twist to it. I felt that the book was well researched and brought to life the time-period and the war as the backdrop to both Iven siblings’ stories.

I received this ARC from Netgalley for an honest review.

There I'd nothing that Katherine Arden wrotes that is not deeply thoughtful and full of nuance. This story, set during World War I, of Laura an injured nurse grieving her parents and searching for her missing soldier brother while being trailed by the ghosts of her loved ones completely mesmerized me.

Add in the fantastical fiddle player luring soldiers to his facade of a luxurious hotel who exacts a terrible price from his guests and you have a perfect set up for a haunting and unforgettable story.

I wasn't sure how I would feel about this story after loving The Winternight Trilogy as much as I do, but I was so happy to see that I was every bit as swept away in the lives of these characters as I was for Vasya and Morozko.

My only complaint is the ending wrapped up a bit too quick and easy and this book had a more hopeless feel than the very hopeful Winternight series.

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘮 𝘏𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘖𝘧 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘴 speaks a universal truth that sadly, despite the progress of time and evolution of society is still prevalent i.e. it explores the horrifying and deeply heartbreaking war times.

- ~ -

Personally the story had a lot of potential but it didn't manage to reflect well.

It's a mixture of magical realism what with all its spirit world and the real horror of wars. It's intriguing but I never managed to connect with the characters or the plot.

3.79 / 5✩

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘗𝘶𝘵𝘯𝘢𝘮 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺. 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘸𝘯.

3.25 stars... I liked it... not my usual read, but I thought the premise was good. It read a little slow for me, but I enjoyed the story enough. I was intrigued by the fact that Freddie was there but also not there. I liked this historical fiction with a hint of paranormal. It kept me engaged but it was something I had to read in chunks. If you're a fan of historical fiction (or the war of 1918) this book might just be for you.

What a stunning book. And I mean that literally, as I feel a little whacked in the head by the whole thing.

This is the story for you if you love Hadestown, Labyrinth, The Magicians series, and (even the slightly-less-good-than-those) Divine Rivals. It’s dark, full of folk magic and creeping ghosts.

The author has clearly done her research, and the result is rich and layered and easy to binge.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC! Free stuff doesn’t color my opinion, honest.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️+

I am in awe of this book, and will be thinking about it for a VERY long time. This is the first time I’ve ever had a historical fiction in my top 5 books of the year. This is also the first time I’ve ever finished a historical fiction book in less than 24 hours. It’s THAT good.

Katherine Arden’s ability to completely submerge the reader in a time period is astounding. I felt physically present; smells, sounds, feelings. She wrote such rich, in-depth, quite distinguishable characters, that with each change of point of view I felt excited to read more. The women in this book were exactly what I wanted to read; strong, intelligent, not leaning on anyone but themselves and their own drive for a conclusion. The romance was delicately peppered in, and did not at all overwhelm the story or undermine the women’s personal stories.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Random House for this experience in exchange for an honest review!!! 📚

I want to be able to tell you how this book made me feel. It’s my favorite type of book, my favorite type of feeling — it is so intimate. Every word and sentence like an almost kiss. This book lives in that tender space between two people sitting close together, whispering in the quiet of a night, their lips almost brushing. This book is full of hope, determination, grit, and the way love not only survives but gives us something to fight for.

It is a book I didn’t know I needed until I read it.

I cannot speak to the historical aspects of this novel but I can speak to it as a story. And to me, it is a damned good one. I would follow these characters to the ends of the earth. I cannot wait to have a copy in my hands to love deeply.

Full review closer to pub date.

I really enjoyed Katherine Arden’s “Winternight” trilogy with its unique blend of history, fantasy, and religion, so I was very delighted to receive an ARC of her newest novel, “The Warm Hands of Ghosts.” A World War I story with a man playing music in the night to seduce soldiers away from the blood and screams of battle, and a sister who won’t stop looking for her brother? Sign me up! Unfortunately, as evidenced by the 10 days it took me to finish this book, the story played out unevenly and I had a hard time making myself persist. The descriptions of war and the anguish of war were poetically desperate and dark, and honestly were my favorite parts of the book. I cared about Freddie and Winter, the two soldiers– they were the most well-developed characters; but for God’s sake, I am tired of relationship pivots less than 10 minutes from the end of stories and authors need to stop doing that (I dropped my rating one star for that because it was unnecessary and added nothing to the plot). Laura, Freddie’s sister, was all right but a bit one dimensional until she started interacting with the American Dr. Jones– I would have loved more of their story. The cover, title, and description sold me, and some parts were all right but overall this new Arden novel wasn’t my favorite.