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!

A vivid and absorbing tale of World War I and its impact. An inventive depiction of the tole war has on mental health and memory. I loved it! Thank you to Net Galley and Random House for the egalley.

Katherine Arden has the ability to write novels steeped in atmosphere, using magical realism to convey deep themes that resonate today. This book is very dark - as expected when writing about war - but does end with a shred of hope. Her characters’ traumas and shell shock feel so real. How do you know who the enemy is? How do you survive when you aren’t sure? The fairly slow pace of the book perfectly matches the events as they unfold. WWI was a brutal, terrifying, soul crushing slog. Arden portrays that so well. I will be recommending this.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Vasilisa walked so Laura could run.

This book was incredible. So damn good.

PSTD (although it's never called that; this is WWI) features heavily, with several different aspects of how people cope. Courage also features heavily, although the definition of courage Arden employs is perhaps not the definition that immediately comes to mind. In the same way, grief is also featured. There are conversations spoken aloud and conversations that lie in the silences and the gaps between words, understood in an IYKYK kind of way. And then there are the ghosts.

Arden talks a lot about how hard it was to write, how the narrative kept slipping away, and I can see that—what a hard book to capture. But holy shit was the result fantastic.

Many warnings, however. This is a book that delves into the horrors of WWI and battles in the trenches, and also dives into the Halifax Explosion. The entire time, the Spanish Flu pandemic is lurking around the corner, seen and experienced but never named, except by the reader.

I received an ARC from NetGalley

Actual Review: 2.5

This wasn’t a bad book but I feel like Arden should have made this more Freddie’s story than the 50/50 split between him and Laura. I think the story suffered from the split and we only got the bare bones from both characters instead of a fuller story. I was more interested in Freddie and wish we could’ve seen a more in-depth look at him and his experience in the war and his relationship with Winter.

As far as I'm concerned, this book is damn near perfect. I'm having a hard time truly putting to words the reasons for why this worked so well outside of brief snippets. Of course, it's written supremely well. Arden is a phenomenal writer and knows her craft. At this point, I think it's pretty much a given that anything she puts out is going to be well written, evocative, atmospheric, and well-crafted. I adored the characters. Laura was a little rough around the edges, a little bit of a bitch (<3), and quietly sweet. Freddie was darling and tragic. The secondary characters -- Pim, Winter, and Jones -- were equally fleshed out and engaging, adding great facets to the stories. Faland was a fantastic villain. He works so well as a villain because you <i>get</i> why he is so successful at what he does. You understand it, you find yourself questioning if it's really so bad, what he's offering. It's very easy to understand why the people on the front fall victim to him. He was not cartoonish, there was grey to his character and it was fascinating. Additionally, the way that ghosts are used in this story, both as real specters and also demonstrative of trauma -- chef's kiss. Just what I'm looking for in this type of story. And I appreciate the setting of WWI. Please read Arden's author's note at the end, it sums up a lot of what I was thinking about while I was reading this about why the setting is so powerful and why I wish there was more works in this vein reckoning with its legacy. And distinctly anti-war in a very effective manner.

And I haven't even mentioned the references and influences! From The Master and Margarita, to Paradise Lost, to Wilfred Own and trench poetry, to Goethe's Faust, to even The Devil Went Down to Georgia! Fairytales, folklore, literature, history... I absolutely loved this novel. Beautiful, aching, and subtly hopeful.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and I teared up at the end, which rarely happens for me in books. The concept was really interesting and I enjoyed the storyline. The only slight downfall was that I didn't totally connect with Laura as a character.