The warm hands of ghosts by Katherine Arden

The Warm Hands of Ghosts is a compelling blend of well-researched historical fiction with the paranormal. Arden’s skilful authoring brings to life the horrors of life during World War 1 with the eerie appearance of ghosts with warm hands. Laura Iven, a nurse who was badly wounded on the Front, has been discharged and has returned home to Halifax, Canada. While suffering from the loss of her parents during an explosion in Halifax Bay, she receives the shocking news that Freddie, her brother, has been reported dead on the battlefields of Belgium. But as she holds his tags and jackets, something seems wrong and she decides to return to find out what really happened to him.

Told in vivid chapters from the point of view of Laura and Freddie, the reader is drawn into the horror of war in the trenches and the role of the nurse on the Front in Flanders, Belgium, 1917-1918,  during The Great War. Laura returns to a private hospital as a volunteer, amid rumours of a fiddler who gives soldiers the gift of oblivion and of ghosts moving amongst the living. Did she glimpse Freddie in the hotel that the fiddler owns? Freddie awakes to find himself trapped in the mud under a pillbox with Winter, a German soldier, and together they desperately try to escape the death trap they find themselves in. Will they reach help or be shot as deserters?

The Warm Hands of Ghosts is an unforgettable story about the trauma of war and the bravery and resilience of the men and women who were caught up in it. Readers of historical fiction will become immersed in the detail, with ghosts and evil threading through the story in a believable way. Those who found Rebecca Ross’s duology, Divine rivals and Ruthless vows absorbing as I did, are sure to want to move onto this gripping stand alone.

Themes: Love, Loss, Evil, Ghosts, World War 1, Flanders.

Pat Pledger