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.
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Author Bio: 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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| Read an excerpt |
The Midnight Carousel –
Excerpt 4
Belle slowed, a clump of
snow landing squarely on top of her hat. She glared upward at the offending
branch. The branch remained unapologetic.
I had to look away.
Snow whispered down from
a branch as she stepped around a smaller fir and stopped. She studied the tree,
her gloved hand brushing a low branch, sending a shower of powder cascading to
her feet.
She stopped so suddenly
that I knew she’d found it before she said a word. Tree selection worked the
same way she made every other important decision, entirely on instinct.
There you are.
The thought slipped
through me before I could stop it.
Relief settled through
me before I could question why.
Which seemed excessive
for a Christmas tree.
The tree stood apart
from the others, not perfectly symmetrical. One side grew fuller than the
other, having reached toward the light over the years, and the top leaned ever
so slightly west under the weight of countless winters.
Slightly crooked.
Entirely itself. It wasn't trying to be the prettiest tree in the grove. It was
simply the one Belle couldn't walk away from. She had chosen the only tree in
the grove that reminded me of people instead of decorations.
She stepped back from
the tree, tilting her head one last time, brushing a dusting of snow from her
mitten, then turned toward us. "What about this one?"
There was no trace of
uncertainty in her voice. She never seemed afraid of choosing. She simply
chose.
Mary studied it for only
a second before smiling. "Oh, that's a good tree."
Nana Iris circled the
tree once, tapping the trunk lightly with her mitten. "Hm."
Belle laughed.
"What does that mean?"
I liked her laugh.
"It means I'm
consulting the spirits."
Christopher pinched the
bridge of his nose. "The tree does not contain spirits."
Nana Iris patted his
shoulder. "That's exactly what a man losing an argument with a magical
house would say."
The twins immediately
declared the tree perfect.
Tinsel barked in
agreement, apparently settling the matter.
Christopher appeared
outnumbered.
Again.
He looked at the tree,
then at the five people smiling back at him.
"I'm beginning to
suspect democracy was a mistake."
Farther up the mountain,
beyond the upper tree fields and the hidden caverns buried within the cliffs, a
bell rang faintly through the stillness. Not loud and not near.
A chill crawled up my
spine.
Nick lifted his eyes
toward the ridgeline, then he smiled again.
But I had seen it.
He'd heard it too.
Belle stayed beside the
tree, one hand resting against the tree, looking perfectly content to wait for
the rest of us to catch up.
I liked that.
Standing there in the
quiet grove, watching her laugh, felt less like choosing a Christmas tree and
more like glimpsing the life I'd tried not to imagine.
Christopher looked
toward me.
Then Mary.
Then Nana Iris.
Every single one of them
wore the exact same expression.
Traitors.
A smile tugged at
Belle's mouth.
"You don't have
to."
I crossed the clearing,
snow crunching beneath my boots, and wrapped my hand around the saw. "I
know."
When I glanced back,
Belle was still watching me. Still smiling. That smile followed me across the
clearing. It shouldn't have mattered. It always did.
The mountain no longer
frightened me as much as the woman standing beside that tree.
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