Katherine Arden: The Warm Hands of Ghosts (Hardcover, 2024, Del Rey)
Hardcover, 334 pages
English language
Published Feb. 13, 2024 by Del Rey.
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 …
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.
Compelled to return to the frontlines of madness, clawing for oblivion in the face of evils and devils, a glint of compassion and sanity from another human sharing the experience. Deftly haunting storytelling.
In my mind, ww1 is the nightmare that keeps your worst nightmares up at night. This was unflinching and unapologetic about the horrors of war and especially the systems that churn millions into the gears of war.
This is a story about a decorated combat nurse going through hell to find her brother as he endures hell and finds refuge in the darkest of places.
I was fascinated by the exploration of what the devil of the old world would do if they found themselves in this man made hell that was indiscriminate of sin and virtue. But I read the devil metaphorically, rather than the literal intention that casts this as historical fantasy - drawn from my own experiences of seeking oblivion from the unspeakable which can quickly lead to mental delusion, shared with those around you to personify, and exorcise, a bogeyman; to keep it at arms length, …
In my mind, ww1 is the nightmare that keeps your worst nightmares up at night. This was unflinching and unapologetic about the horrors of war and especially the systems that churn millions into the gears of war.
This is a story about a decorated combat nurse going through hell to find her brother as he endures hell and finds refuge in the darkest of places.
I was fascinated by the exploration of what the devil of the old world would do if they found themselves in this man made hell that was indiscriminate of sin and virtue. But I read the devil metaphorically, rather than the literal intention that casts this as historical fantasy - drawn from my own experiences of seeking oblivion from the unspeakable which can quickly lead to mental delusion, shared with those around you to personify, and exorcise, a bogeyman; to keep it at arms length, to shove it in a closet and continue to add locks even though it finds its way out of the smallest of cracks. The devil in this story is so human because it personifies something so many struggle to articulate, but is visible if you know how to look.
Arden doesn’t pull punches, there is no happily ever after - how does one survive a war, even if they walk away?
