Pesha and Fen have shouldered the grief, pain, and fear for the people they love for as long as they can remember. Fen as his sister’s protector and handler, and Pesha as his brother’s trusted right hand. Neither has given thought to their own happiness, because a life of crisis only allows for chaos. Contentment is an affliction neither can afford.

When Pesha embarks on a desperate, risky journey to a homeland he’s never been to, in a final attempt to save his dying sister, Fen doesn’t hesitate to come along to help the man he’s been slowly falling in love with. But Pesha’s bewildering, escalating hostility on the road leaves him rejected and confused.

Making matters far worse, their “welcome” to the Territory of Asgill is far from warm. They are both descendants of the Forsaken, a faction who waged a violent uprising against their Medvedev leader almost three decades earlier. Though neither have any knowledge of those days, they’re branded as seditionists and stripped of freedoms. Pesha’s sister is taken away for healing, but if her treatment isn’t successful, the end for her is death.

To save her, and themselves, they will need to learn to do the impossible: accept they need as much help as they have always offered others.

Fen and Pesha will either break this chain…

Or die trying.

The Hand and the Heart is a friends to lovers romance, featuring Stiofen and Pesha, characters first introduced in The Melody and the Master. It is the second story in the Darkwood Cycle of The Book of All Things, but can also be enjoyed as a standalone.

The Darkwood Cycle:
Marriages of convenience, age gaps, friends to lovers, and healing love, deep in the Darkwood (medium high heat)
The Melody and the Master
The Hand and the Heart
The Wulf and the Witchling

“The Well” by Nora Adamszki for The Hand and the Heart

“Sun, Dark, or Stars” by Alexandra Curte for The Hand and the Heart

Stiofen “Fen” Thornheart by Offbeat Worlds for The Hand and the Heart

Pesha Trevanion by Offbeat Worlds for The Hand and the Heart