Editorial Content for The Warm Hands of Ghosts
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
I'm typically not big on ghost stories. I like my fictional characters to be solid, corporeal and usually alive. So it's a testament to Katherine Arden's prior work that I eagerly awaited THE WARM HANDS OF GHOSTS, despite the fact that the word "ghosts" is right there in the title. This book is about ghosts, to be sure, and it has its fair share of haunts and spirits of various kinds --- not to mention one of the most memorable devils in recent fiction. But these ghosts, in Arden's skillful hands, shed light on the all-too-solid and corporeal realities of World War I.
"THE WARM HANDS OF GHOSTS, which is the product of many years of research, offers an intriguing mix of well-drawn historical fiction and fantasy."
When the novel opens, it's early 1918, and everyone's hopes are pinned on the Americans who have just entered the fray but are taking a bit too long to make their presence known. The war has already seemed endless for Laura Iven, who has returned home to Halifax, Nova Scotia, after being wounded while serving as a nurse on the Belgian front. Her brother, Freddie, is still fighting overseas --- at least that's her assumption --- until she receives a package with his uniform jacket and both of his dogtags, along with a cryptic note. Laura, who recently lost her parents following a devastating explosion in the Halifax Harbor, is all alone in the world if she's lost Freddie.
So despite her reservations, Laura seizes an opportunity to accompany a fellow nurse back to the front to search for her brother. She is accompanied by another woman, Mrs. Shaw, who has lost her son and is desperate to find out what happened to him.
In a parallel narrative, readers learn about the fate of Freddie, who, a few months earlier, was essentially buried alive in a so-called pillbox, or concrete guard station. His only living companion? A German soldier named Winter. Injured, terrified and in complete darkness, the two grow close through their shared humanity and the stories they tell one another. Even if they have a chance to escape, they're likely doomed, given the fact that they’re fighting on opposite sides. Either they're enemies or they're traitors.
As the two narratives converge both chronologically and geographically, a shadowy figure named Faland ties them together. The proprietor of a mysterious guest house, a brilliant violinist and possibly a thief of souls, Faland offers victims of trauma --- of which there is no shortage in the lands around Ypres --- the lure of forgetting, of oblivion. But at what cost?
THE WARM HANDS OF GHOSTS, which is the product of many years of research, offers an intriguing mix of well-drawn historical fiction and fantasy. On one level it's a family saga, the story of a brother and sister desperate to find their way back to one another, and to something resembling safety. But it's also a romance, a ghost story, and a fascinating interrogation of a time when the world was right on the brink of what we might call modernity, where old superstitions and deadly modern technology overlapped in new and terrifying ways.
Teaser
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, but something doesn’t make sense. Determined to uncover the truth, she returns to Belgium as a volunteer at a private hospital. 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. Against all odds, the two form an alliance and succeed in clawing their way out. They take refuge with a mysterious man who seems to have the power to make the hellscape of the trenches disappear.
Promo
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, but something doesn’t make sense. Determined to uncover the truth, she returns to Belgium as a volunteer at a private hospital. 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. Against all odds, the two form an alliance and succeed in clawing their way out. They take refuge with a mysterious man who seems to have the power to make the hellscape of the trenches disappear.
About the Book
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.
Audiobook available, read by Michael Crouch and January LaVoy
