The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden

Shoutout to Diane who recommended The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden when I asked for audiobook recommendations.

It is 1917. Laura Iven is a war nurse who has returned home to Halifax after she was injured. Her mother and father are killed in a terrible explosion in the port. Meanwhile, she has received confusing messages about the death of her brother Freddie at the front in Belgium. She arranges to go back to Europe in order to find out what happened to her brother.

Once there, though, Laura starts to hear rumors of a hotelier who plays violin and creates a space for men to forget about their pain and what happened to Freddie becomes less and less clear. 

Listen, I am not  usually a Great War kind of girl. I actually find most war books too repetitive and dark for me. But this one, with its faint whiff of magical realism, female bonds, and the power of family, both found and natural, hit just the right spot for me. Also, the narrators, Michael Crouch, and January LaVoy, had such lyrical voices that I never found myself drifting off, which has become quite a problem for me with audiobooks recently.

Anyway, this was a great rec. Thanks, Diane! 4/5 stars

Line of note:

"Maybe this is hell," he said, only half joking. He supposed in hell it didn't matter if you were Canadian or German. That put the war in perspective... (chapter 4)

There's a lot of foreshadowing in this line. Super interesting. 

Thing I looked up:

Halifax explosion - I linked to it up above because it's such a crucial plot point. With both of her parents killed in this explosion, Laura had nothing left in Halifax, so heading back to the warfront made sense. Without this explosion, would Laura have stayed in Halifax to recuperate from her war injury and care for her parents?

On December 6, 1917, the French cargo ship SS Mont-Blanc and the Norwegian vessel SS Imo collided in the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Laden with high explosives, Mont-Blanc caught fire and detonated, devastating the Richmond district of Halifax. At least 1,782 people, largely in Halifax and Dartmouth, were killed by the blast, debris, fires, or collapsed buildings, and an estimated 9,000 others were injured. The blast was the largest human-made explosion at the time. CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE?

WWI pillbox - a type of blockhouse, or concrete dug-in guard-post, often camouflaged, normally equipped with loopholes through which defenders can fire weapons. It is in effect a trench firing step, hardened to protect against small-arms fire and grenades, and raised to improve the field of fire. The modern concrete pillbox originated on the Western Front of World War I by the German army. 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

top hat (chapter 2)

tin hat (chapter 4, chapter 12x2)

larger hat (chapter 7)

pass the hat (chapter 7 x2)

flowered hat (chapter 11)

under her hat (chapter 13)

tipping his hat (chapter 15)

covered his face with his hat (chapter 19)

funny hats (author's note)

Do you read a lot of WWI books? Is there another one I should be reading? 

The Wonder State by Sara Flannery Murphy

Why did I read The Wonder State by Sara Flannery Murphy? I don't know. Was it you? Did you recommend it to me? If so, thank you! 

Welcome to Eternal Springs, Arkansas in the heart of the Ozarks. This town has some weird quirks and a group of high school students soon finds that an architect named Theodora Trader had built houses with magical traits: one where people must tell the truth, one where you can hide in plain sight with the help of mirrors, one where time stopped when you were inside, etc. What happens next? Well, you know, the things that happen in thrilling books: kidnapping, murder, a woman no one can find. OF COURSE. 

Look, I sped through this book in a day and I could not wait to read it when I had to, you know, live the rest of my non-book life. The start was sort of confusing because there are six main high school characters and their associated parental units and some teachers to keep track of. BUT. I persevered and the book definitely paid off for me.

I just love the idea that this is OUR world and these houses are just here. It's magical in the very best of ways and I really enjoyed seeing how the magic worked and how the modern characters - with cell phones and computers - dealt with the magic and interacted with it. I loved how the Ozarks were not just the setting, but a fully formed character. 

The characters were maaaaybe a bit weak, but I'll let that slide. If you haven't read this one and it sounds interesting to you, give it a go. 4/5 stars

Things I looked up:

Brundlefly (page 90) - Dr. Seth Brundle, also known as Brundlefly, is a fictional character and the tragic hero in David Cronenberg's 1986 remake of The Fly. He becomes the titular fly.  Damn it all, I hate pop culture references I don't get.

Leonora Carrington (page 102) - Mary Leonora Carrington was a British and Mexican surrealist painter and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City and was one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movement of the 1930s. Carrington was also a founding member of the women's liberation movement in Mexico during the 1970s.

Hat mention (why hats?):

flourish of an imaginary hat (page 208)

Title spotting:

"You know, I did find something out. Someone at a party told me, when I mentioned where I'm from. Arkansas's state nickname used to be 'the Wonder State.' They nixed it after a decade or two because The Wonder State was too old-fashioned, it didn't draw enough economic growth." (page 358)

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Have you ever been to the Ozarks? If you knew there was a magical house in your town, would you go there?