The Warm Hands of Ghosts: A Novel | 
pickY'all. Katherine Arden is just...magical. So...what if ghost stories and folktales associated with war were real (i.e. what if a fiddler really was on that roof?) This book, like all her books, beautifully weaves folk stories and reality, and I CANNOT get enough of her!
2024 was kind of an odd reading year for me in terms of headspace for large portions of the reading year. And while I‘m hoping to feel more connected and present in my reading in 2025, I still read some absolutely fabulous titles. Did any of these make your top reads of 2024 and what were your favorites?
More thoughts: https://youtu.be/fCvaUqADor0
#12Booksof2024 August
I read or heard an interview with Arden somewhere that this book came about when she started thinking about how this time period changed so many of our perceptions of the world and she decided to write about how it might have changed our perception of the devil. I deal with WWII a lot for work and the idea of this - the devil finding a new calling in WWI France - really spoke to me.
Mollie moonbeam and I finished this one in bed 🛌 this morning 🌅 😂one of our favourite ❤️ places to read , anyway a so so read for me the author states at the back of the book at stages she didn‘t think she‘d finish 🙃 writing this ; and I can see why . It isn‘t bad far from it , it just lakes depth - there‘s a great story in there somewhere and I appreciate how hard the writing process is. So on Remembrance Day remembering our brave & fallen
Part WW1 history part ghost 👻 story perfect November pick leading up to Remembrance Sunday “lest we forget 💔“ 🌺👩✈️👨🏻🚒👩🏾🚒💂🏻♀️💂🏿♂️🧑⚕️👩🏽⚕️👨🏽⚕️👨🏼✈️🕵️🕵️♀️🕵🏽♂️🕵🏻♂️
pickI have too many feels for this story that Arden put together!
I found this to be a great read, at times an ode to the war and the people affected, and others time a magical tale laced with hope, and dash of madness yet highly detailed that I never lost my place or the realities of the time. To my surprise, the characters had to navigate through the war and it's nightmares but also their adaptation to seeing their world transformed.
#pantone2024
pickSuch a beautiful story. Loved the historical background, the mystery and the feelings. I liked reading Freddie's parts more than Laura's, but aa an onlychild it waa touching to read about their love for each other. The story totally absorbed me, but also reminded me how disastrous WWI was.
#bookspin @TheAromaofBooks
pickThis story has the ugly subject matter of war, but the writing is beautiful. I felt for Laura and Freddie with their stories alternating between chapters. The middle was a little slow for my taste, but the ending was satisfying. And, this OwlCrate edition is GORGEOUS!
pickSet in WWI, this story follows the paths of the Iven siblings. Both are lost to war in their own right. Soldiers whisper tales of a devil who eats souls and memories. When Laura Iven hears that her recently deceased brother may not have died, she follows the ghostly whispers back into the war zone in Belgium. No one can keep them safe.
4.5/5. I fell in love with all of the characters & found myself enamored with the folk tales.
Showing off my Goldsboro edition of The Warm Hands of Ghosts because it's as beautiful as the story inside 😍😍
so-soI wanted to love this novel, but something in it just does not work. Set during WWI, a sister desperately searches for her brother. The end was wrapped up too neatly, and for all the action, I found that it dragged in the middle of the novel. I still love this author, but this was a miss for me. 3 🌟
so-soI'm struggling with the rating on this one. It could have been a low pick. Parts of it were so, so good. The premise was great and writing was solid. The end wrapped up a little too easily though and there were a few parts that lagged. In the author's note, Arden discusses her inspiration and ideas, which I don't think the book quite lived up to. It did make me want to read more WWI books though.
Not a tough choice for April! The decision between March and April was a little tougher… and I think I‘ll leave the next decision until this one is a little less fresh. #readingbracket2024
pickThe author referred to this as steampunk WWI. And there's something brilliant about it. There's the end of the Victorian era bumped up against the 20th century. People are into seances. There's trench warfare and no mans land and shell shock. It's all very surreal and the author ran with it.
#Aardvark @AardvarkBookClub
#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks
I'm totally in love with this book. Steampunk WWI is how the author referred to it. We're currently waiting for an orange line T train.
My current book bestie wandered through the TD Garden this evening. 🖤💚 Boston
I'm now all caught up with my March special editions. Received the March adult fantasy book from Owlcrate today. Love the red.
Today my book bestie and I are catching some sun on the train.
Today's book bestie will be played by this gorgeous gem that I haven't started yet.
pickOn paper, this should have been a 5 star read for me: historical fiction, lovely prose, siblings separated by WWI, PLUS fantasy & romance. While I did end up rating it 4 stars, there were a few things that didn‘t quite work for me in execution: Faland & his magical mystery hotel, the slowest slow burn romance(s) that don‘t come to fruition until literally the final chapters of the book, and some of the plot logistics of the climax and dénouement.
pickWow.
I didn‘t know anything about this book going in—I just knew I had to read it since I‘d loved her Winternight trilogy—and I‘m glad, so I won‘t say too much. It‘s about the horrors of war and other horrific things, and of things beyond war. It‘s about love, both family and romantic. It‘s not like the Winternight trilogy at all. I may even recommend it more highly.
Gandalf‘s opinion is not as high, but what does he know? He‘s a cat.
Bk25 of my 2024 #BookMail is this stunning edition,I absolutely loved her Winternight trilogy. Jan 1918, Laura Iven has been discharged from her duties as a nurse & sent back to Nova Scotia, leaving behind a brother still fighting in the trenches at Flanders. Home, she receives a telegram informing her of his death, but it doesn‘t make sense. Determined to find out more she returns to Belgium.Their stories twist around ghosts & a strange inkeeper.
pickLoved this book! Lauren, an exfield nurse, her brother, Freddy, goes missing during WWI. Freddy gets trapped in a pillbox with a German soldier after an explosion. They escape, but then Freddy becomes trapped in a purgatory type state. Meanwhile, Lauren has returned to her nursing duties at the front to look for him 🖤
pickI have just finished this book, it is wonderfully
heart-wrenching. It transports you to WWI and all the horror of war whilst giving you a golden thread of hope to hold tightly throughout. This story has a realness whilst touching the fantasy veil just enough that you could imagine soldiers telling this tale in the trenches. This story will stay with me, and so will the
characters.
#HistoricalFiction #Fantasy #WeekendAllBooked
Do not despair. Endings—they are beginnings too.
#aardvarkbookclub #jointoday
This is my favourite way to spend a Sunday Afternoon. A big cup of tea and a good book. This is the beautiful picture on the endpapers of this special edition from Waterstones. Think this tale might be a heartbreaker
Happy Sunday Litsy
#SundayReadersClub
You will not know who your enemies are, nor will they reveal themselves as you expect. You will not know whom to trust, but you must trust regardless. Do you understand?
#aardvarkbookclub #jointoday
pickI devoured this haunted historical fiction / fantasy in one sleepless night. Beautiful, devastating, hopeful. Highly recommended.
pickJan 1918 & Canadian, Laura Iven, returns home injured from volunteering as a nurse in the war. The only family Laura has left is younger brother, Freddie who is fighting on the front lines but soon after returning home, Laura receives a box containing Freddie's jacket & tags with a note saying that he is missing presumed dead. Laura cannot bear the uncertainty & decides to return to Belgium to find out what happened to her brother. (continued)
Y'all this is going to be one of my top 10 reads of this year I think! Between the time period, the setting and the characters this gothic-esq book was everything! One sitting read! #bookspin @thearomaofbooks
pickLaura was injured on the front while she was serving as a nurse in WWI. She was sent home to Halifax to heal just in time to lose her parents in the Monte Blanc explosion in the harbor. When her brother Freddie‘s belongings are sent to her from the front, she heads back to Europe to figure out what happened to him.
Meanwhile, a mysterious man is luring soldiers to his hotel with wine & fiddle music.
Seriously one of the best books I have ever read
That college humanities sequence really paying off recently
pickDuring 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.
#aardvarkbookclub #magicalrealism #historicalfiction
One of the few books I'm managing to read with this last bout of asthmatic bronchitis. It's very good so far. Katherine Arden is becoming a must read.
London felt like limbo to her, the glittering center of the modern world become merely the war‘s antechamber.
I went to a bookstore and only came out with one book. I have accomplished an impossible feat. 😂😂😂
Read about it here: https://wildwoodreads.com/2024/02/22/a-bookstore-and-a-restaurant-the-perfect-da...
pickGaaaaah. The perfect blend of speculative and historical. I would do anything for Laura and Freddie, and the way the Faland reveal crept up slowly was just masterful. Showed the realities of the war without being completely fatalistic. A+. #historicalfiction #speculativefiction
pickArden is a masterful writer able to situate readers in a time & place with such effortless ease that before you even realize you‘ve been transported to the battlefields of WWI, you find yourself there struggling to survive, searching for the missing, &, impossibly, finding reason to hope & dream in the midst of the horror. This haunting story about a sister looking for her missing brother as war rages is fantastic. I really enjoyed this one.
pickI really enjoyed this book! Historical fiction w/ mystery and supernatural elements.
WWI nurse Laura Iven lost her parents when a ship exploded in Halifax, Nova Scotia's port. She returned to the battlefields in search of her brother, her only remaining family member. In her search, she comes across the mysterious Faland, a being who comes & goes at whim, feeding off the despair surrounding
him. 5/5 ⭐ #NetGalley #TheWarmHandsOfGhosts
