The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
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.
January 1918. Laura Iven was a revered field nurse until she was wounded and discharged from the medical corps, leaving behind a brother still fighting in Flanders. Now home in Halifax, Canada, she receives word of Freddie’s death in combat, along with his personal effects-but something doesn’t make sense. Determined to uncover the truth, Laura returns to Belgium as a volunteer at a private hospital. Soon after arriving, she hears whispers about haunted trenches, and a strange hotelier whose wine gives soldiers the gift of oblivion. Could Freddie have escaped the battlefield, only to fall prey to something-or someone-else?
November 1917. Freddie Iven awakens after an explosion to find himself trapped in an overturned pillbox with a wounded enemy soldier, a German by the name of Hans Winter. Against all odds, the two men form an alliance and succeed in clawing their way out. Unable to bear the thought of returning to the killing fields, especially on opposite sides, they take refuge with a mysterious man who seems to have the power to make the hellscape of the trenches disappear.
As shells rain down on Flanders, and ghosts move among those yet living, Laura’s and Freddie’s deepest traumas are reawakened. Now they must decide whether their world is worth salvaging-or better left behind entirely.
Thank you to Random House Publishing Group and Netgalley for the Advanced Reader Copy. I also got a signed copy of an ARC at New York Comic Con.
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 The Warm Hands of Ghosts 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