3.5* for this magnificently written but rather gloomy story, set in 1918 as WW1 comes to its climax. The premise had a lot of promise but the characters fell a bit flat for me.

So I feel like this book is one of those that you'll appreciate rather than enjoy. Had I gone in with different expectations, I would have liked it a lot more than I did. I'd heard it was a bit slow and character driven, but then so was The Bear and the Nightingale and I thoroughly enjoyed reading that. But unlike the Bear this story didn't present me with a likeable character to root for. I kinda liked Freddie, and I sort of tolerated Laura's chapters but neither character felt alive and breathing. In terms of side characters, I enjoyed reading about Jones (the war surgeon) but he had very little page time. I absolutely adored Arden's characters in her previous books, so this surprised me!

But having a largely character-driven plot with relatively 2D characters just meant I was forcing myself to push through 70% of this novel. There was a bit of action and the tension grew around the 75% mark until the end; there's a few reveals there. However, the plot is very much as it says in the synopsis "ex-war nurse goes looking for lost soldier brother, lost brother and an opposition soldier navigate through the belly of WW1 and discover a mysterious man nicknamed 'The Fiddler'" The plot doesn't grow much beyond that. We find out more details about The Fiddler, we follow Laura as she tries to find Freddie, and we follow Freddie and Winter as they wade through The Forbidden Zone of WW1. That's mostly it.

If you took this book as a harrowing observation of the evils of war, the hypocrisy of men and the blurred lines between good and evil, it's bloody brilliant. It's beautifully written (I still loved Arden's writing, despite the snail-like plot) and it makes you think. Is it a whimsical, adventurous fantasy with characters to root for? Nope. Is it a heart-wrenching new take on the meaning of evil, infusing historically accurate descriptions of war with fantastical elements? That's exactly what it is.

Now to touch on the romantic aspects. There is a tiny morsel of romance. Like I said above, the focus of the book is the gruesome reality of war and the meaning of evil, so the romantic aspects are few and therefore not well-developed. Laura's romantic involvement felt more believable to me than Freddie's (that's all I can say without spoilers). In my opinion, Freddie's romance felt oddly out of place and Arden either could have done without it or should have developed it a lot better.

It was an interesting book and I enjoyed it to some degree. You can tell by the author's note at the end that Arden was meticulous in her research and is a proper history nerd (and I love that about her) therefore the descriptions felt very real and atmospheric. If I liked any of the characters a bit more I probably would have given this a higher rating. But as it stands I'm hoping and praying that her next book is a bit more light-hearted and faster-paced.

(Review posted on Goodreads, already published, please see link provided)

"The blessed forget and the damned remember."
this book was everything i needed, and yet, i wasn't ready for the turmoil of emotions that it caused me. i am utterly without words to describe how much i loved this book, it was stunning.

This book had such an eerie, magical feel. I absolutely love Katherine Arden's writing, and I was so excited to read something a little different from her after reading the Winternight trilogy. I loved Laura as a character; she felt realistic and relatable, and I loved how she was consistently motivated by her love for her brother. I thought a really interesting element of this book was the way that the magical aspects of the book contrasted so drastically with the bleak and horrific setting of World War I.

"The Warm Hands of Ghosts" by Katherine Arden is a hauntingly beautiful historical novel with a speculative twist that transports readers to the eerie and otherworldly landscape of World War I.

Set against the backdrop of the Great War, the story follows Laura Iven, a former combat nurse who returns to Canada wounded and is devastated by the news of her brother Freddie's death in the trenches. However, when she receives Freddie's personal effects, something doesn't add up. Determined to uncover the truth about her brother's fate, Laura returns to Belgium as a volunteer at a private hospital. Here, she encounters whispers of haunted trenches and a mysterious hotelier with a unique gift. As Laura delves deeper into the mysteries surrounding Freddie's death, she begins to question the boundaries between life and death, reality and the supernatural.

The narrative is split between Laura's perspective in 1918 and Freddie's experiences in 1917, creating a rich tapestry of interconnected stories. Arden's storytelling is both immersive and atmospheric, drawing readers into the nightmarish landscape of World War I, where the boundaries between the living and the dead blur. The novel's speculative twist adds an element of the supernatural, creating an eerie and unsettling atmosphere that keeps readers on the edge of their seats.

The characters, particularly Laura and Freddie, are well-drawn and deeply relatable. Their emotional journeys, as they confront their traumas and grapple with the supernatural forces at play, are at the heart of the story. Arden's prose is lyrical and evocative, painting vivid pictures of the war-torn landscapes and the ghostly phenomena that haunt the characters.

"The Warm Hands of Ghosts" is a thought-provoking exploration of the psychological and emotional scars left by war, as well as a chilling and mesmerizing tale of the supernatural. Katherine Arden's masterful storytelling creates an unforgettable reading experience that will linger in the minds of readers long after the final page is turned.

This story was a perfect example of "could have been and wasn't." Very disappointed in the storyline that started so well Arden could have created a terrific plot with just Freddie, Hans, and Faland, getting rid of Laura and her coterie of vapid women and inconsequential men, and the story would have been a thousand times better..

(Full review to be post on my page)

Absolutely beautiful story and writing style. I adored this book so very much and highly recommend it. I am looking forward to reading more from Katherine Arden.

The Warm Hands of a Ghost had all the makings of a brilliant, thought-provoking novel, filled with haunting questions. However, it was written through boring perspectives that stunted the emotional impact it was trying to have.

The Warm Hands of a Ghost follows a brother and sister’s traumas and triumphs during WWI. Laura is a war nurse discharged from the field after a severe injury. Back in her hometown, she receives news that her brother Freddie has died in combat. Something isn’t adding up, so she returns to the field to find out what truly happened to her brother. Freddie is trapped in a pillbox with a German soldier. Forced to work together, the two escape and form an unlikely bond under the pressure of the battlefield. After escaping, the two try to escape the war zone, unaware that they will come face-to-face with something worse than death.

First of all, I think the historical aspect was handled well. Arden did not shy away from the gruesome nature of World War I; in fact, she exposed the raw pain and trauma that it caused. She didn’t romanticize wartime. There is a brutal honesty about how detrimental WWI was for millions of people across several countries. It brought to light how soldiers were nothing more than pawns, calculated risks and losses. Laura and Freddy’s anger towards the powers playing with their lives (spiritual and physical) was palpable.

The fantasy aspect had strong religious undertones. What would the devil do if our world was worse than hell? What happens when the depravity of men wins, and human beings are reduced to violence and suffering? While, on a personal level, I don’t agree with this, it is an interesting question. There are lots of references to Revelation and the End Times. During both world wars, Christians believed they were in the final days. Our characters were asked repeatedly to choose between the horrors of the world or the manipulation of the devil.

Now, the reason this book didn’t work for me was the characters. Arden is a fantastic writer, very skilled at her craft. I’m still confused as to why the characters were so boring. If you’ve read her trilogy, you know she can write inspiring and complex main girls. So why was none of that present here?

I don’t know how Laura came across as so dull. She was incredibly strong-willed with a loyalty to her brother that is inspiring. Yet, I never got to know her. I was presented with personality traits and just told to accept them. It was frustrating that I never got to be in Laura’s shoes; everything felt so impersonal. Her trauma was extensive, but she was detached from it. Even though all of these awful things happened to her since she showed no reaction, I did not react either.

Freddie, and by extension Winter, were slightly better. They had the advantage of being in a more tense and emotionally charged situation. Still, though I felt bad for what they were going through, I didn’t connect with them.

The inability to connect to the main characters translated to the supporting cast. Since I couldn’t care about my core three, their friends and enemies were nothing more than shadows in the story. Any romance, betrayal, or tense moments between Laura, Freddie, and the side characters had no impact. Laura and her lover completely blind-sided me; Freddie’s romance wasn’t even explored; it was just there. What’s more, the romances were trauma-based, but we didn’t go into detail about that. I am very picky about my romances, and I need some emotional connection to my characters to care about who they love.

Warm Hands of a Ghost is a heavy novel that forces you to reconcile with the evil people are capable of. It’s raw and heartbreaking till the very end. If you can form a connection with the characters, you’ll love this one. It just wasn’t for me.

Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing-Ballantine/Del Rey for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

January 1918 Laura Iven works as a discharged nurse back home in Canada while her beloved brother Freddie fights on the front of World War I. The story unfolds from Laura and Freddie’s points of view. Freddie fighting on the wastelands of battle, only to be trapped inside a pillbox to die a slow, cruel death. Ironically finding he’ll not die alone, but die with an enemy soldier. And Laura, his sister who despite all logic and signs, senses her brother is still alive.

Both siblings will not only face the bleak forces of war, but a mysterious violinist with an otherworldly hotel. Eerie stories of wine offering oblivion, music producing madness, and a mirror depicting your heart’s greatest desire create more questions than answers. Is this hotel the perfect place to offer sanctuary, or traded one nightmare for another, stranger nightmare? One that can’t be fought with guns or bombs, but with truth and ghosts.

Both siblings grapple with the darkness of the world and their own dark hearts as they fight back to each other. Fighting doubts, fears, and darkness at every turn. Not all questions are answered and the reader is left wondering what exactly did the siblings fight other than the wastelands of WW1?

Overall, this is a dark tale, with a twist of otherworldly that Arden is so well loved for. This is not a feel good story, rather, an unflinching depiction of war and utter bleakness of the front, of a world on fire and humanity’s fight to keep going. My heart broke for the characters an all the memories they tried to forget, for we all hold a little darkness in our hearts we’d wish to forget as well. Perhaps, even contemplating death versus the risk of living like Freddie. A dark tale, one that brings terror and shadows. Yet, the will to fight and live.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Del Rey and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. I am posting this review to my Goodreads account and pub date is 2/13/24.

“Ghosts have warm hands, he kept telling me, as though it was the greatest secret in the world.”

This book, I have so many words, and, yet, none seem to be satisfactory enough to express the beauty that is The Warm Hands of Ghosts, however, I’m going to try.

The Warm Hands of Ghosts is a fantastical story of war that is both eloquent and blighted in its telling. Though this story contains less of the glittering prose that we’ve become accustomed to in the world of Winternight, Arden does not cease to exercise her prodigious lexicon with a flourish that is singular to her brilliance upon the page. I still found myself highlighting every third passage for the beatific or poignant way she found to describe one thing, experience, or another. And though the imagery is often bleak, it is masterfully wrought.

Arden has told the stories of the people who were a part of the “forgotten war” that is both compelling and compassionate. She has still told a fairytale, but it is Faustian and filled with the darkness and terrors of war. Arden captured the stories of the men, women, and children who were touched by the cruel twists of Fate that thrust cavalry riders towards tanks and bayonets into eerie clouds of green gas - these may sound like fever dreams, and, yet, they were not.

At the end of this story, the author’s notes, and the acknowledgments I found myself fully dissolved into a puddle of tears (please, if you read this, read them all). It is heartbreaking, in the extreme, and, yet, there is hope. A thin streak of morning light peaking through the darkness. That humanity, however changed, cannot be lost without your consent. That doing what is right, can often feel wrong - or that maybe, right and wrong don’t exactly exist within the parameters we’ve set and that we must follow our hearts and those who we love to find our way back to the light.

Five brilliant stars for Arden’s Ghosts. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Thank you to @randomhouse & @netgalley for the privilege of reading this early in exchange for an honest review. Pub date is Feb. 13, 2024.

Arden's writing was completely captivating and beautiful, tackling heavy-hitting themes such as war and loss. The pace in which the narrative unfolded was superb, the characters, even the secondary ones, felt rich and imaginative. My heart went out to Laura, a former combat nurse whose injury brought her back from the front-line only to face fresh demons at home. I loved the historical atmosphere Arden captured so flawlessly, immersing the reader in a past that felt authentic, and its blending with fantastical notes, treading the invisible liminal line between reality and fiction. This book is absolutely unique in its narrative and delivery, and I couldn't put it down.

I loved this book! Definitely a new genre for me but I really enjoyed it. I would definitely read more by this author in the future and recommend this book to all my friends.

Thank you Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC.

This was such a hard, heartbreaking read. It took 7 pages to have me sobbing… I knew immediately that this book was going to change me and haunt me forever. 
By the end of the book, I had lost track of how many times I was left broken. Katherine writes with such beautiful but devastating imagery. 
The world during 1918 was very dark and under constant change. Everyone was adapting to better fit the hard times and learn to survive. And Katherine really captured these struggles so well, while remaining respectful to the realities of war. 
From madness, gangrenous limbs, scarring and life lost, this story leaves no detail of war left untouched. The humanity found within each character was so humbling to read. Just a brilliant piece of writing. 
I adored Laura in every way possible, she was a survivor. Every character in this was such a masterpiece and really help push this story to new heights. The love between Laura and Freddie is so pure, I cried so many times over the ways the siblings spoke of each other. And the sheer willpower Laura exerts in the search for her brother is awe-inspiring.
This story is told masterfully through dual POVs and timelines. It’s woven together so poignantly to give you the best sense of the deterioration into madness and hopelessness. This is a dark, haunting tale that I am so grateful to have read. This story is the ghost that will haunt me for the rest of my waking days.

This is often a heartbreaking read, a story of war, of loss, but there is also love - in many forms, and hope, to balance the horrors of war. It is also a story of family, and the lengths we will go to in order to protect those we love, as well as the grief that follows loss.

This story begins as World War 1 was in the beginning stages, and as the war began to ramp up, and young men were sent off to war, how the lives of doctors and nurses changed drastically, especially as the wounded were arriving on a regular basis, and life changed for everyone.

Arden has written a beautiful story that reaches through the darkness of both war and the darkness of evil personified, against the gift of light, hope and love.


Pub Date: 13 Feb 2024

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Del Rey

The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden is a great WWI-era historical fiction that has mystery, suspense, emotion, and an addictive narrative.

This is the first book that I have read from this author. She creates a wonderful world that balances between the solid here and now and a gray, eerie, mystical second dimension. The book alternates between two siblings and through these two different experiences, we can feel as if we are there amongst the anguish, emotion, fear, guttural instincts and I really enjoyed every moment of it.

4/5 stars

Thank you NG and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Del Rey for this wonderful arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication on 2/13/24.

The First World War always makes me angry and upset,and author Arden feels the same way. In this beautifully-written novel, she weaves together numerous aspects of the war to create a rich novel about loss and acceptance and recovery. She uses the folklore of the trenches, the experiences of nurses and volunteers, the horrific practices of executing so-called cowards and deserters, the mental and physical yraumas of the war, and the contrasting lives of those who waited for news from afar to tell a story that is immediate and compelling and all-engrossing. Troops talk of a mysterious "Fiddler," who gives soldiers a night of hauntingly beautiful music in a dazzling and warm hotel, only to never be found again. (I have to think he is related to Bulgakov's Woland.) When a nurse's brother falls into the Fiddler's hands, she rejoins a nursing unit in order to find him. Her journey and companions are unexpected and compelling. Highly recommended.

This was absolutely beautiful. I was low key worried I wouldn’t like this as much as her Winternight trilogy. And while this was different than her previous books, this was no less beautifully written. A tad slow paced for my tastes, but the characters so compelling I found myself reaching for the book to read more. I 💯 recommend if you are a fan of war stories and eerie writing.

Thank you NetGalley for the arc!!

4.5

Let me preface this my saying I don’t typically love books or movies that deal with the carnage of war. I’ve also read my share of WWII novels and feel that if I’m going to read a war story, I’d rather read about wars and battles that aren’t over-saturating the market these days. When I saw Katherine Arden was writing a novel set during WWI, I was intrigued, because I’ve only ever read one other book taking place during this particular war. Knowing this story would be in the hands of an author whose work I adore, I took the plunge. And I am so glad I did!

Haunting and beautifully written, this is a story about life. About death. About love, and fear, and the bravery it takes to face another day. It’s a story about the worst that humanity has to offer, but also about finding a hope to hold onto in the midst of chaos and pain. It’s a story about friendship and kinship and loyalty that knows no bounds.

The dual timelines were done in such a way that I didn’t want either to end, and the distinct voice for each character was done perfectly. The landscapes had a tragic beauty to them, able to sustain life but also the very place where so many lives were lost. The bleak reality of war was perfectly offset by the haunting mystery that historical fantasy often brings to the table.

This book is incredibly different from The Winternight Trilogy or the Small Spaces series, yet it has so many of Arden’s trademarks that include attention to detail, the blending of folklore and/or history with unique story, layered storytelling, character depth, and vivid settings. I definitely recommend it if you like war novels, historical fantasy, or slow-paced stories with layered plots and characters!

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Random House — Ballantine for this advanced reader copy!

I was so excited to get an advance readers copy of this book from netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I loved the authors previous trilogy "The bear and the nightingale", it is one of my favorites. I have been waiting for another adult fiction book from the author and was so happy it's coming out soon and I was able to read this now. The story pulled me in from the very beginning and I couldn't put it down. This is a beautiful and haunting story perfect for the fall season and Halloween. The war is captured perfectly in all its horrible sadness and madness and what it does to people. This story has a unique spin and portrayal of the devil, which I absolutely loved and thought was brilliant. There's even a bit of a twist you probably won't see coming.

There were lots of good quotes in the book but I think my favorite was one that I identify with so much and feel the same about:

"The blessed forget and the damned remember."

I don't want to say more and give too much away so all I will say is that I loved this book and would definitely recommend it!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine for this advanced reader copy.
Arden is my favorite author of all times so this book was just wonderful to read. Her evocative prose was just so well crafted and the heartbreaking yet beautiful story we get to read is nothing short of breathtaking. Just wow. 5 stars all the way.

During the Great War, a combat nurse searches for her brother, believed dead in the trenches despite eerie signs that suggest otherwise, in this hauntingly beautiful historical novel with a speculative twist from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale.

Katherine Arden is an excellent writer and this is just another great book. Well done.