Genre: Historical Fantasy
Length: 336 pages
Audiobook Length: 14 hours
First Published: 2024
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Rachael’s Review
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Del Rey. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
In January 1918, recovering war nurse Laura Iven is reeling from the death of her parents in a local disaster when she learns her brother is missing in action. Months earlier, Freddie finds himself trapped in a bunker in No Man’s Land with a German soldier. Forging a lasting bond from the near-death experience, Freddie and Winter can’t bear to be separated until they find a man who promises to take them out of this hellscape. Searching for answers, Laura volunteers at a private hospital in Belgium, where she hears whispers of a fiddler who can make soldiers forget in this historical fantasy novel.
The Warm Hands of Ghosts is five-star historical fiction dragged down by a three-star fantasy. Katherine Arden’s impeccable World War 1 research shines throughout the novel. She beautifully describes the horrors of the war while also sharing interesting historical events I didn’t know. Even better, I loved Laura and Freddie and wanted even more of most of the supporting characters. Unfortunately, the “Devil Went Down to Georgia” fantasy story didn’t hold much force for me. I would have preferred a straight historical fiction novel instead.
Publisher’s Description
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, Laura 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, where she soon 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 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.
About Katherine Arden
Katherine Arden is the author of The Warm Hands of Ghosts and the Winternight Trilogy: The Bear and The Nightingale, The Girl in the Tower, and The Winter of the Witch. She has lived in Russia and France, and studied both Russian and French Literature in college. She currently lives in Vermont. Visit the author’s website →
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