Welcome to Litsy!

Part WW1 history part ghost 👻 story perfect November pick leading up to Remembrance Sunday “lest we forget 💔“ 🌺👩‍✈️👨🏻‍🚒👩🏾‍🚒💂🏻‍♀️💂🏿‍♂️🧑‍⚕️👩🏽‍⚕️👨🏽‍⚕️👨🏼‍✈️🕵️🕵️‍♀️🕵🏽‍♂️🕵🏻‍♂️

Beautifully written and strikingly vivid.

I 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

Such 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

This 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!

Set 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 😍😍

I 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 🌟

I'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.

I am in love with this cover!😍

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

The 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.

On 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.

Wow.

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.

For March The Warm Hands of Ghosts was my top read 👻
#TopRead2024 ##ReadingBracket2024

Loved 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 🖤

I 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

I devoured this haunted historical fiction / fantasy in one sleepless night. Beautiful, devastating, hopeful. Highly recommended.

Jan 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

#KatherineArden is becoming one of my favorite authors! #WarmHandsOfGhosts

Laura 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

#aardvark bookmail!

That college humanities sequence really paying off recently

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.

#aardvarkbookclub #magicalrealism #historicalfiction

This should be interesting. Looking forward to this one.

#Aardvark @AardvarkBookClub

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...

Gaaaaah. 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

Arden 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.

I 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

I‘m very excited about the release of Katherine Arden‘s new book. I adored her Winternight trilogy and although the premise of this book is intriguing, I had sort of been hoping for another Russian setting. But I‘m happy anyway!

A fun blend of historical fiction and fantasy in the vein of Mary Stewart and Simone St. James. This novel follows Laura Iven, an injured Canadian WWI nurse, who longs to find her younger brother, Freddie, a missing soldier. She finds help in unexpected places. Reality blurs with some characters facing an impossible choice: to rejoin the harsh, fast-changing real world or hide in an enticing fantasy world.

Sometimes you need fantasy to help understand reality, because we cannot imagine such a fantastic time. I learned about WW1 because Katherine Arden taught me about the Fiddler, and the warm hands of ghosts.

And yeah, I'll remember this story for the rest of my life. So, five stars.

OMGOSH!!!!!

Spent the last few days utterly immersed in this remarkable book. It is unlike anything Arden has published before but it is every bit as good, altho there are hints of Midnight and Chaos if you look carefully. One of the best ARCs I‘ve read this year. Get it in 2024.