The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden

The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my first time reading anything by Katherine Arden, and The Warm Hands of Ghosts was perfect. I don't read WWI books, but reading this one opened my eyes to things I never thought possible. For one, the writing was beautiful. I enjoyed reading about how two siblings are currently in different places and fighting to get back to each other. I like reading books about siblings fighting to get back to each other. I also was very curious about the man Faland and how he's a crossroad demon who wants stories so he can write music for his violin. I kept getting crossroad demon vibes the more he hung out with Freddie and kept asking him stories about his life, and kept asking him about what happened to him and a German soldier named Winter in that pillbox. Why was Faland so curious about him and Winter? Why did he want that story so bad?

Laura...Laura was very pushy and was very strong about wanting to find her brother, to the point that she kept forgetting to take care of herself. When she, Pim, and Mary walked into Faland's hotel and she saw Freddie (or Freddie's ghost, as she believed) she started to go crazy, but then she stopped and even tried to get Pim to stop looking for Faland after Pim looked in the mirror. But the way the book intertwines with the characters and how they're trying to get back to each other-Freddie and Laura in another period for a moment, then somehow Laura hears news about Freddie and how he was this place and he was that place, and when she finally met the German Winter and he told her about Faland, that's when she went to find him, only to have the ghosts tell her where Freddie and Faland was.

And Freddie...poor, poor Freddie. He was stuck with Faland, drinking all the time, sleeping all wonky, giving him story after story. At one point I thought he was gonna turn into Choso for a good second and go mad, but he didn't, thank god, and when Laura finally found him, that's when the both of them went to try and escape the maze that was Faland's hotel, only to come out and find out that Pim made a deal with Faland and is now traveling with him after killing a general who killed her son.

This was a different book than I'd normally read, and I'm glad that I read it because now it's one of my favorites.

View all my reviews