One Night in Hartswood: As seen on TikTok! The Duchess of York Historical Book Club pick. The 2023 debut historical romance to warm your heart. For fans of Stephanie Garber, Freya Marske, TJ Klune

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As they discover each other, the reader is taken on a hike of sorts through a forest, wondering how this will turn out, until circumstances collide and the truth is revealed. The pacing through the middle of the book was a bit slow while the beginning and end almost seemed rushed, but the story flowed well enough to keep my interest. A perfect romance novel with lyrical prose and sparkling characters, this evocative book almost had it all.

The medieval setting is similarly undistinguished and the attempt to build a sense of time and place (beyond ‘there are castles and woods here’) is minimal. The romance developed slowly because Raff was hesitant to do anything with Penn because of the power imbalance.

I want to make a content warning about abuse really just talking about some severe abuse in this book. I was initially taken in by the beautiful cover but, once I’d read the blurb I knew this would be one for me.

But of course the lies become these big unspoken things between them and even after Raff's lie is found out, Penn doesn't tell the truth and at that point I was just done with the lies. I devoured all the delicious tropes of falling in love with a mistaken identity, snuggling for comfort, sparring sessions laced with sexual tension. I’m all for a happy ending, but I truly think that these two deserved it, which isn’t something I always say! It was enjoyable to read Penn coming out of shell and finding his own talents and realizing he did not deserve his father's abuse.Penn, by contrast, is so adrift at the beginning that to see how far he had come in the epilogue all but brought a tear to my eye. I thought Penn's character was developed quite a bit more than Raff's but he didn't feel unfinished. Ash had to have been my favorite, and I would love a side story that gave us more insight into Oliver. It felt like Penn spent most of the book struggling with his father’s abuse, then seamlessly destroys him.

I don't tend to like books with historical settings, but Denny's debut novel had an intriguing premise (and an adorable cover), so I decided to give it a try - and I'm so glad I did! Beautifully written, the heart-rendering narrative is an outstanding debut, and this is a book I'm proud to publish.The two work together to free a cruelly trapped deer and share a passionate but hasty kiss, both then running their separate ways. Also, I rolled my eyes at how long the MCs kept lying to each other, and at Raff's delightfully accepting family ("Our Son: He's a Sodomite, but We Don't Mind"), and at what a dumbass Penn is (he flees his father's castle -- dead of winter, remember -- without taking a cloak!