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A review by jlkenneth
The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.5
Well it’s hard to get my head around, but somehow Katherine Arden managed to combine World War I, the book of Revelation, Paradise Lost, and the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice together into this beautiful, deeply impressionistic novel. If that sounds like too much for one story…well truth be told, it almost is. It’s evident throughout the novel that Arden was testing her limits as a writer here and was very nearly bursting her capacity - but I think in the end, she pulled this one off beautifully. <i>The Warm Hands of Ghosts</i> took me a little longer to warm up to than Arden’s previous novels, but around the halfway point something clicked and carried me quickly through the rest of the book.
The story is told with Arden’s characteristically warm and vivid prose, though unlike <i>The Winternight Trilogy</i>, she leans into more of a dark take on magical realism here. Her descriptions are so visual and really do feel like a sort of impressionism, which I think works well with the fractured structure of the novel and of the Great War in general. It’s refreshing to see an American author turning their attention to this historical period, and I think this novel does a wonderful job of tying together all its seemingly disparate threads in a vibrant tapestry.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the author for the advance reader copy - Get your hands on a copy of this in February 2024!!
The story is told with Arden’s characteristically warm and vivid prose, though unlike <i>The Winternight Trilogy</i>, she leans into more of a dark take on magical realism here. Her descriptions are so visual and really do feel like a sort of impressionism, which I think works well with the fractured structure of the novel and of the Great War in general. It’s refreshing to see an American author turning their attention to this historical period, and I think this novel does a wonderful job of tying together all its seemingly disparate threads in a vibrant tapestry.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the author for the advance reader copy - Get your hands on a copy of this in February 2024!!