Rarely in the course of European history has Hell felt as salient as in the ugly, savage trench warfare of the 1914 "Great War" (more commonly known as World War One). The blasted fields of Northern France were the direct inspiration for Tolkien's Mordor, a land from a story that also reflects the clash of an old, familiar world with one that is new and terrifying. Katherine Arden captures the violence and tragedy of the battlefield with dreadful elegance, snapping between the primal terror of Freddie, a young Canadian solider struggling to survive alongside a wounded German with whom he has formed a traumatic connection, and the clinical efficiency of his sister Laura, a battlefield nurse determined to discover the fate of her only remaining family.

There are elements of this that read as pure historical fiction, and it is clear Arden diligently researched the era in her quest to bring the horror of the war to life. However, the fantastical elements read equally as true: wandering ghosts and mysterious hotels and and a sharp-tongued violinist of ambiguous mortal status. I think this is because, as Arden addresses later in her author's note, so much of this conflict involved a clash of eras that is often only seen in fantasy and science fiction: fighter planes alongside carrier pigeons, men in suits of armor clashing with men with machine guns. Amid this chaos in terror, it seems only natural that supernatural would creep in at the edges, taking advantage of the miasma of fear, misery, and madness suffusing the continent.

As much as the supernatural in this book feels tangible, it is also a stark metaphor for the mental trauma of war. Freddie's confusion and missing memories, Laura's hallucinations, nightmares, and flashbacks, are all hallmark symptoms of PTSD, something which at their time was categorized as "battle fatigue" if it was considered at all. In bringing to light the toll of Laura and Freddie's experiences, even through a fantastical lens, Arden shines a light on the millions of men and women who suffered invisibly. Overall, I was impressed by the message of hope communicated by the novel. There were ways in which the resolution felt "too" perfect, but I appreciated the focus on love and family, and the strength of even the briefest human connection to see us through enormous suffering.

I've read author Katherine Arden before and I did enjoy her "Bear & the Nightingale", so I wanted to check out her latest offering with such an intriguing title "The Warm Hands of Ghosts." I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but this just wasn't it. It's more of a depressing story set in WWI, which is not a genre I care for at all. I'd say it's really a war story with paranormal elements, maybe?? This is also a very character driven story, but I found most of the characters very unlikeable and rather flat. The historical aspect feels very true & like there was a lot of research done by the author, but the scant romantic aspects get short shrift and were not as developed. I think it tries too much to do too many things. Still, it is different & I applaud that, so there's my 3 stars. My thanks to the publisher & Net Galley for the complimentary DRC, opinions my own

Starting off in the aftermath of the Halifax explosion in Nova Scotia in 1917, Laura Iven nurses the victims while she is still recovering from her own battlefield wounds. She returns to the front to continue at a field hospital but also to look for her missing brother. Powerful insight into the trauma of World War I and the devastating toll it took on its young soldiers. This one stays with you.

Incredible historical fiction of WWI and Halifax which I had no idea had so many tragedies in its history. There is a supernatural thread that slowly and quietly wends its way into the characters' lives and minds and guides the plot as a background character. While it is a relatively short book, I thought it slowed a bit through the middle and could have successfully been even a bit shorter with maybe less hospital work, although I see the author's desire to share the fascinating story of Mary Borden. This book offers engrossing atmosphere of the battles and trenches of WWI that was, at some points, quite difficult to read. A story filled with very powerful imagery and several strong storylines of love.

I really enjoyed this book! It reminded me of The Bear and the Nightingale by this author because both could be considered historical fiction. I look forward to her future novels!

Katherine Arden has done it again! Arden has such a special and unique way of storytelling. The Warm Hands of Ghosts is a must-read for anyone who loves historical fiction, specifically World War I. I loved how Arden incorporated nursing into her story. The story intertwines between nurse Laura and her younger brother who is a soldier fighting in the front of the war. The book was wonderful and hard to put down because I simply wanted to know what would happen.

Thank you NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine and Del Rey for sending me an ARC in exchange of an honest review of the book received.

This was a good story but very challenging to get through. I found little connection to Laura and was more interested in the story of her brother and Winter. This is extremely well written and well researched and a fascinating tale. I just felt like the execution was a bit off.

I simply didnt sleep tonight because i had to finish this horrific, beautiful book. Thank you netgalley and randomhouse.

In the the death gasps of the great war, nurse Laura narrowly survives her hospital being shelled and is ferried home to halifax, only to arrive for a maritime disaster that steals the lives of her parents. Her only brother Freddie is then reported missing, suspected dead in the trenches, but Laura cant shake the feeling that there is more to Freddie's disapperance to be uncovered. Though grappling with injury, fear, guilt and hope, she returns to the front with a volunteer hospital, and follows a series of odd interactions and clues to search her brother out of what ever wild and wicked end befell him.

I fell deeply in love with katherine arden's writing in the winternight series. This was a massive departure, and i dont think ive seen this kind of genre change done so seamlessly. Yes, this is a historical fiction, but its magic. Yes, this is magic, but it is grotesquely real. Anybody who thinks that maybe a war could be justified should be forced to read this book to completion. It was deeply upsetting and i know its maybe not for everyone, but it definitely was for me.

AND HOW COULD A NURSE NAMED LAURA NOT BE ENAMORED WITH A NURSE NAMED LAURA!? jokes aside, laura is an amazing character. I got pulled right along the ward with her. There was series of ads for cinemax's "the knick" a while back, one who which said "nurses arent what they used to be" and god damn it, its all i could think of when they talk about her changing dressings and telling jokes.

Please read this book.

THIS BOOK. This book reminded me why I love historical fiction, specifically WWI historical fiction, so much. It was gritty and tense and atmospheric and heart breaking. It gripped me tight and didn’t let go.

At the core of this story is a sibling bond and the depths we’re willing to go to protect those we love. As someone with a close relationship with my sister, this book hit me hard. Like Laura, I would go to the ends of the Earth for my sibling. And Laura really does, slipping between life and death and every stage in between. I loved the nursing elements here and the romance that blossoms between Laura and the brisk, efficient, handsome American doctor? Such a swoon worthy subplot that added so much to the central storyline. There was also a queer romance plot line but I don’t want to spoil anything so I’ll leave that there.

Overall this was such an incredible book that sat with me long after I turned the last page. The ending was perfect for the story and it hurt so good. A must read for historical fiction lovers, you won’t be disappointed.

I really wanted to like this more than I did. I got an advanced reader copy from NetGalley, and was so excited-I loved the entire Winternight Trilogy and think that Katherine Arden is one of the most talented fantasy writers out there. But this was muddled and confusing, with characters who don’t really make sense and that you don’t get to know. I also felt the writing was really stilted, and what I loved about her books and her writing -the beautiful language, the incredible imagery, the massive world building-was just missing. There were too many plots and it wrapped up too neatly for how complicated the vast majority of the book felt. Felt like a book that it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. It is exhaustively researched, and I found the authors note and acknowledgements were really poignant-actually cast the book in a new light for me and I understood it more. While this may not have been a book I loved, I’m still a big fan of her, and will read whatever she writes!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House/Ballantine/Del Rey for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are mine.

The book opens with Laura, who is a nurse working in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It’s January 1918 and she has been sent home from France after significant injuries she sustained as a combat nurse on the battlefield. A freak accident in the harbor off Halifax has also recently killed her parents. Laura is holding out hope that her brother Freddie will return home from the war alive. Laura has received her brother’s clothing from France with an anonymous note from someone promising to find him. Freddie officially has been listed as Missing in Action. Laura makes her way back to the frontlines to find Freddie and wade through rumors of haunted battlefields.


This book engaging but not a truly scary ghost story. It also educates today’s audiences about the realities of WWI. It sheds light on the toll the horrors of war took on those who fought in it. It acknowledges the bravery of the men and
women who went to defend the world against evil and oppression.

I love this book. I love this author. If you’re not familiar with Katherine Arden please look up The Winternight Trilogy. It is one of my all time favorite series.

In all honesty, I went into this book with rabid eagerness and high expectations. Maybe that was my first mistake - having an already high opinion of the work of this author.

I am quite disappointed.

The story buildup was a bit agonizing. I spend the first half of the story waiting, and waiting, and waiting to be baited with the hook. It was altogether very lackluster, like looking into a dusty mirror version of what the story might have looked like if given a little more conflict, drama, character development, and redemptive arc.
The dialogue was ---. No one could finish a thought or complete a sentence.

Her choice to use a fringe cult sect of Christianity (Jehovah's Witness/Watchtower Society) to serve in displaying her apocalyptic imagery was interesting.

What is the most disappointing of all is that Katherine Arden is a phenomenal writer with a wonderful grasp of language and prose, as is made evident in her authors note. Honestly the best writing of the whole book.

A beautifully written story of a sister and brother during WWII. The brother loses himself after escaping death with a German solder. His sister, a nurse injured in the war, find herself back at the front to try and find if he is alive or dead. Powerful, unique and entrancing story.

So this was disappointing. The premises were so good, but the execution let me down.

First thing first, Laura's character was so bland. It was so hard for me to connect with her to get transported into the story, which is the thing I value the most when reading. She had literally nothing special that this is all I feel like saying about her.

It's my first Katherine Arden book, and I really liked her writing style, but it was so hard to follow. I found myself lost so many times while reading a single sentence. Some parts were choppy, which got me so confused and wondering how the hell it was connected to what I'd just read a few moments before. Thoughts interrupted midway that left me just like "wtf."

However, I did enjoy Freddie's POVs. I wish she'd have focused more on the development of his relationship with Hans, as well as Faland, who I thought was an interesting concept and figure in the book. I also appreciated the rawness in giving us a depiction of how destructive a war can be. I truly felt it and for that, I owe this book ⭐️⭐️.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with this ARC!

If you liked Lovely War, READ THIS NOW! Even if you've never heard of that, read The Warm Hands of Ghosts IMMEDIATELY. This is now one of my favorite books of all time.

Arden writes with the most tender beauty that is filled with so much emotion and an almost kind of angst. It gets pretty graphic at some points but that lends itself to the reality of the situation.

Compulsively readable, the language flows so well and the two plot lines are so intriguing that you want to keep reading. I normally don’t like dual timelines but this is only a few months apart. The older timeline is basically a prequel to the other, they are not happening simultaneously, though sometimes it got hard to remember these things were not happening simultaneously (even though the dates are at the beginning of every chapter). The storylines beautifully merge together in such an intricate way that when you make the connections you can't help but say "holy shit".

I obviously don’t have a first hand account of WWI but it seems like a very accurate portrayal into the psyche of a soldier in the trenches, it’s total hell. It seems in line with what you'd see in non-fiction or movies. There’s a part where the explanations of the psychological horrors endured by the soldiers that felt a little heavy handed, bordering on pity to be honest, but it was still done with care.

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘮 𝘏𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘎𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘴 is set in WWI, from the perspective of a decorated combat nurse, who has just lost her parents in the Halifax Explosion. She receives the effects of her younger brother, a soldier who has been fighting in the trenches of the western front, but something seems off. When all of her questions concerning her brother's death are met with non-information, and a ghost tells her that her brother is alive, she decides it is time to return to the front and investigate.

This story is ominous, with a sense of shifting reality. It unfolds slowly, and I struggled to connect to any of the characters; there was little-to-no growth. I was steeled for the grim realities of the Great War combined with the spooky atmosphere of supernatural elements, but not necessarily for a dearth of hope or redemption. I found myself quite disappointed by the overall outlook.

Katherine Arden is an excellent writer; however, I struggled to find the same deftly-handled nuance and balance that was so well done in The Winternight Trilogy. Far from being immersed, I felt a barrier of confusion between myself and the characters and story, or like I was looking at it sideways. This book was a monster of an undertaking. There was certainly thorough research into the setting, but the plot, themes, and characters were underdeveloped. Unfortunately, she just didn't bring it home for me.

Thank you to to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read an ARC of The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden, in exchange for an honest review. This book releases from Del Rey in February 2024. All opinions expressed here are my own.

This book was beautifully written and haunting. It really showcases the horrors of war in a way I haven’t seen before- or at least it shows the processing of those horrors in a new way.

I love the way the author writes romance- it’s not heavy handed but it doles it out in a really delicious way. I also appreciate how the romance is a lovely part of the book but not the main plot- which is the loving bond between two siblings above all else.

Did I stay up until 1am on a work night to finish this book? I sure did! I read one chapter just to see what the book was like and then I had to keep going. I don’t think that World War I is necessarily *under*represented in historical fiction but this was a new perspective on it for me (the protagonists are Canadian and the Halifax harbor explosion is a major influence on the plot), and honestly I was fascinated by how vividly Katherine Arden describes the particular horror and pointlessness of that conflict and that moment in time. The heroine, Laura, is a nurse who has been honorably discharged due to injury and gone back home to Nova Scotia but goes back to Europe to look for her younger brother, who is maybe dead or maybe missing, and it is a tribute to how well the second thread of the book about her younger brother (who is trying to save a German soldier after they were buried alive in a trench together and clawed their way out) was written that I wasn’t screaming NO GO BACK TO MY PERFECT STEEL-SPINED LAURA every time the point-of-view shifted because she really is EXACTLY my favorite kind of character. There’s a lovely understated romance but the heart of the story is Laura and Freddie’s devotion to each other and it’s just wonderful, and the touch of the supernatural adds the perfect flavor without overwhelming the sense of a historical moment. Natasha Pulley fans, ARISE, this book was tailor-made for you.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review. I love Katherine Arden's "Winternight" trilogy and was so excited for her next book!

That being said, this book fell a little flat for me. The writing style was a bit hard for me to get used to, and then I just never really felt connected to Laura. I found myself wanting to skip the parts with Laura and just go back to Freddie and his situation. I do wish the situation with Freddie and Hans was explored more as well!

It's obvious that the author did a ton of research for this novel. The details about war are never glossed over and it's shown to be realistically brutal. I appreciate this from the author, but overall the rest of the book just wasn't for me.

This book takes place during WWI and follows two siblings through the war. The chapters go back and forth between Freddie, a soldier, and Laura, a nurse. The writing is beautiful and haunting. This was a page turner full of suspense, and also had characters with heartbreakingly relatable fears and motivations. I loved the spooky elements of this story as well. I feel like this book checked all the boxes for me, it was amazing!