The Midnight Carousel (A Forest Falls Frolic) by Hanna Park

 

The Midnight Carousel
(A Forest Falls Frolic)
By Hanna Park

Publication Date: 22nd September 2026
Publisher: Baisong Press 
Print Length: 197 Pages
Genre: Romance

Belle Stanhope had plans. Good plans. Practical plans.

None of them involved Hudson Carver.

The florist with the crooked smile had become a distraction she neither wanted nor could avoid. Which was inconvenient, considering the Pretty River Inn and the upcoming bachelor auction left little room for distractions.

For years, Hudson had been content with the life he'd built beneath Christmas Mountain. His flower shop, his workshop, and the friends who had become family were more than he'd ever expected. Then he met Belle Stanhope.

As Christmas approaches, the carousel's calliope sings off-key, and the old magic he'd left behind stirs once more. The life he'd built and the life he wants are no longer the same.

In Forest Falls, wishes have a way of finding the people who need them most.

 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cover Art: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

There are book covers that tell you exactly what sort of evening you are about to have, and The Midnight Carousel has one of them. The glowing carousel, the snow, the Christmas lights — before I had even opened the book, I wanted to put the kettle on and disappear into it for a few hours.

Thankfully, the story inside lived up to that promise.

What I enjoyed most was how unapologetically romantic it is. Belle and Hudson spend so much time circling around their feelings that I began to wonder whether Forest Falls might have to stage an intervention. There is something rather endearing about two grown adults being perfectly sensible about everything except each other.

Hudson also gave me one of my favourite things in a romance: a hero who is obviously keeping something back. I knew there was more to him, but I wasn't prepared for Hanna Park's explanation. It is such an unusual idea, and one I haven't come across before.

Forest Falls itself has a slightly peculiar relationship with what most of us would consider impossible. Strange things happen and, rather than screaming and running for the nearest motorway, people seem inclined to accept that this is simply how life works around here. I became quite fond of that.

And I must come back to the cover, because having finished the book I think it suits it even better. It looks cheerful and inviting, but there is something about that carousel glowing in the darkness that hints at the magic waiting inside.

The Midnight Carousel is the sort of book that makes being indoors on a freezing winter evening seem like an excellent plan.

Preferably with the Christmas tree lit.

And something nice to eat. 🎄

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Hanna Park

I began my writing career in the pre-dawn of a winter morning while my husband snored like a train. We could call my husband the catalyst. If it weren’t for him, I would never have gone to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, feed the cat, and sit on the loveseat in front of the fire. It was there, in those moments of wondrous quiet, that I did something I had never thought possible. I opened my laptop, and while the coffee went cold, I wrote a story. My husband had no idea that these sojourns to the loveseat in front of the fire would become a daily occurrence, that writing would become an obsession, but the cat knew. She knows everything.

I write stories that make you laugh, make you cry, and make you love. Thank you, friends, for reading!

In the beginning, there was an empty page.

I am a writer who lives in Muskoka, Canada, with a husband who snores, a hungry cat, and an almost perfect canine––he’s an adorable little shit.

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