On December 6, 1917, a cargo ship exploded in the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia, after a minor collision with another ship started a fire on the deck. The blast was the largest ever human-made explosion at the time, flattening an entire district of the city. About a month earlier, one of the most horrific battles of World War I, the Battle of Passchendaele, had staggered to a close. These things really happened.

However, Laura Iven, a decorated Canadian army nurse who recently lost both of her parents, one in the Halifax explosion, was not a real person. Neither was her brother, Freddie, declared dead on the Western Front after Passchendaele; Hans Winter, the German soldier Freddie finds himself trapped with; or Penelope Shaw, a beautiful widow who lost her only son to the war. And while the First World War was certainly hellish, there were no actual devils wandering the wounded Flemish countryside.

In The Warm Hands of Ghosts, these carefully chosen fictions amplify the facts to render a gorgeously written, brutally honest portrait of the unremitting horror of trench warfare. Author Katherine Arden (The Winternight Trilogy) deliberately frames the story in apocalyptic terms, opening each chapter with a quote from the book of Revelations and portraying Laura’s resistance to her parents’ messianic belief in Christian prophecies of the End Times. Arden knows that her heroes cannot end the Great War. Their battles are smaller: Laura and Penelope travel to a Belgian field hospital seeking news of their lost loved ones, and Freddie and Winter seek to save each other. Arrayed against them are chateaux-dwelling generals playing Risk with real lives; the deliberate, protective myopia of countries coping with years of trauma; and the mysterious Faland. A Stygian violinist haunting the battlefields, Faland offers his victims a choice: Will they keep their memories, or hand them over to his safeguarding? Since humankind persists in creating an Armageddon, Faland argues that his deviltry is, in fact, merciful.

Not all the heroes succeed. The Warm Hands of Ghosts is not one of those war stories where a brave soldier snatches their comrades from the jaws of certain death before riding off into the sunset with a medal for their trouble. But each of Arden’s protagonists chooses their own fate. And as she argues in this exquisitely researched, heartbreaking book, that small revanchism is enough when the world ends.

Heather Fawcett’s second installment in the Emily Wilde series is a cozy read sure to entrance fans of fantasy and romance alike. A charmingly cantankerous and brilliant Cambridge professor, the titular Ms. Wilde might be the world’s foremost expert in faerie lore. She traces the history and habits of the Hidden Folk, and she’s recently written the first encyclopedia about them. In Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands, while working on the titular map, Emily is faced with a number of challenging and life-altering adventures—which are complicated by the presence of her former academic rival and now lover, Wendell Bambleby. 

The first book in the series, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faerie, revealed that Bambleby is an exiled faerie king, which means Emily’s commitment to him is a high-stakes endeavor. His dangerous and powerful mother is trying to find him, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to discover a portal back to his realm. Most stress-inducing of all, if Emily commits to Bambleby’s proposal of eternity together, she’ll be giving up her quiet and predictable existence as a humble professor. The two lovers are the very definition of opposites attract, and their every interaction, whether awkward or fiery, delights and excites.

Fawcett’s melodic writing style immediately transports readers to early 20th-century Cambridge, beckoning them to stride down cobblestone streets, stroll along the scenic River Cam and sit saturated in old-book smell in gothic university libraries. This immersion into English academia is heightened by Emily’s narration, as she’s unable to compose any sort of writing without a smart peppering of footnotes and references. Each clever addition is a tiny showcase for the character’s dry humor, quick wit and wealth of wisdom. 

The intimately close perspective allows Fawcett to highlight how Emily blooms and grows as she and Bambleby pursue their goals. Love can change a person—or a faerie—in the most unexpected of ways, and it’s impossible to walk alongside Emily on her journey of scholarship, mapmaking and true love without rooting for her.

The epigraph of Louisa Morgan’s The Ghosts of Beatrice Bird comes from Emily Dickinson: “One need not be a chamber—to be haunted— / One need not be a House— / The Brain—has Corridors surpassing / Material Place—”. This brief passage beautifully encompasses the novel’s core idea, that plumbing the depths of one’s past trauma can reveal, and hopefully abolish, the shades that haunt us all. 

Dr. Beatrice Bird is quite happy being alone. Self-isolated on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest in 1977, she takes care of simple things in her small cottage. She milks the cows the previous owner left behind. She watches the shoreline. She picks up groceries when they come over on the ferry. She misses her partner, Mitch, whom she left behind in San Francisco.

But Beatrice’s solitude keeps the ghosts at bay. 

She sees them whenever she encounters another person: Their fears, pains and shames orbit grimly around them where only Beatrice can see. When a young woman named Anne Iredale arrives on the island to escape her own past, Beatrice senses a kindred spirit and offers to take her in. A psychologist by trade, Beatrice slowly uncovers Anne’s story. But the ghosts that haunt Anne are some of the foulest Beatrice has ever seen. Can she and Anne heal enough to banish the ghosts once and for all?

This book has a healer’s heart, revolving around Morgan’s inquisitive, sensitive and measured look at trauma. Yes, ghosts are present and yes, they do inject tension, but they’re used more as conduits for the real work of psychological examination. As Morgan jumps between both women’s perspectives, including some flashbacks to key moments before the island, the reader feels as if they’re putting together the pieces alongside Beatrice as she helps Anne start her healing journey. Morgan knows how to let a conversation develop slowly, and Beatrice and Anne’s friendship blooms at the same natural pace. Trust is earned, truths are confessed and time passes. No one can rush someone like Anne into a breakthrough. It has to happen naturally. 

The importance of women healing other women appears in many of Morgan’s other novels (The Great Witch of Brittany, The Age of Witches), and The Ghosts of Beatrice Bird is an especially kind and empathetic expression of the same theme. Though Beatrice sets out to help Anne, Anne inevitably helps Beatrice. Pain is wiped clean by understanding, like a gust of air off the ocean. Find a comfy seat and settle in. You’ll be glad you did.