The Warm Hands of Ghosts

by Katherine Arden

DelRey Books/PRH

    This is a beautifully written novel of WWI - a nurse who has returned, injured, from the war and loses most of her family in the Great Halifax Explosion chooses to return to the war to try to find her younger brother.  The war scenes in the trenches and the hospitals are described in chilling detail, as is the depiction of evil as a force that destroys souls - this is not a book you'll soon forget.

    We don't get anti-war novels quite as beautifully done as this.

If you would like to learn more about this book, or own it, please check with your local bookstore or this great place bookshop.org .

 In Memoriam

by Alice Winn

Penguin Random House

    This brilliant novel begins in 1914 and follows two young men, as well as many of their school friends, from their idyllic, upper crust boarding school through the horrific years of WWI. This is beautifully written in spite of the vivid descriptions of the casualties. Poetry, nature and the love that these boys share - in various guises - balance, and enhance, the terrors of the war. It's amazing to see how very young these boys are as they go off to die for their country. 

  

If you would like to know more about this book, or purchase it, please check with your local independent bookstore or this great place - bookshop.org .