This is a beautifully written novel about a brother and sister lost to each other in the horrors of WW1. I loved that the book starts in Halifax, Nova Scotia in the aftermath of the huge harbour explosion and moves to the battlefields of Flanders. Katherine Arden is a talented author and she captured the different personalities to a tee. I’m not sure the supernatural element was needed - personally this didn’t add much to the story and I found it slightly annoying. All in all, a good read though.

Great storytelling, covering exquisitely researched detail from World War One, characters that you become engrossed with, and the fantasy and magical element that we know this author does so brilliantly.
I did feel it was a slow start, building up the scene and the characters but the story enfolds beautifully: love, horror, obsession, magic, evil, all culminating in a satisfying finish.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the review copy.

The Warm Hands of Ghosts is Katherine Arden's first stand alone adult novel. It is told in 3rd person from the POV of Laura Iven and her brother Freddie. It is 1918 during WWI and Laura was a nurse but she ends up discharged after getting injured which means she has to leave her brother Freddie behind. Laura is told her brother died but she decides to go to Belgium to see if it is true. Laura hears there are ghosts at this hospital and wonders what has happened to Freddie. In 1917 Freddie is in No Man's Land with a German soldier after being trapped under an overturned pillbox. This was a well written historical novel but I am not sure if the years the author spent working on this novel have paid off. I am giving this book 4 stars but the novel never really came together for me. Laura's characterisation was very weak and I am not 100% sure she was needed as a character. I think the story could have been told from Freddie's POV and just been his story and I wasn't really satisfied with the romantic elements either. The fantasy felt very light to me.

World War One, and as shells fall in Flanders, a Canadian nurse searches for her brother believed dead in the trenches despite eerie signs that suggest otherwise in this gripping and powerful historical novel. WOW! If this isn't a book to brag about I don't know what is... I started it late last night. Never did I anticipate I would be closing the book at 3am! Simply wonderful!