Catherine Anderson - Maple Leaf Harvest

Lane Driscoll has been having nightmares where she’s chased by a strange man. When she has a threatening run-in with someone who looks just like the man from her dreams, she decides to leave her hometown until she figures out what’s going on. Lane seeks refuge in beautiful Mystic Creek, where she gets a job working at the local perfume shop. Soon after she arrives, a handsome customer seems to think he recognizes Lane, but calls her by the wrong name.
When Jonas Sterling, a local psychologist, encounters his ex-girlfriend, Veneta, in town, he can't believe his eyes. He hasn't seen her for years. Jonas is even more baffled when it turns out the woman is a total stranger to him. There's no way two people could look so similar without being related. Jonas discovers Lane was adopted at the age of three and is now twenty-six years old—the same as the woman he dated.
After initial shock at the idea she could have a twin, something clicks inside Lane—and now she needs to locate her missing sister. A romance blossoms as Jonas agrees to help her. But when the man from Lane's nightmares shows up in her dreams again, Jonas and Lane realize Veneta may be in grave danger, and their search for Lane's sister turns into a heart-pounding race.

Comment: This is the 7th installment in the Mystic Creek series and I had it in the shelf since 2022. Normally I wouldn't have waited as long to read a book by this author, and even more so when it's part of a series, but I confess I haven't been dazzled by the others and that affected my lack of eagerness.

In this story we meet Lane Driscoll, a young woman who has had nightmares for a while and one day she is accosted in the street by a man who says things that make no sense to her and she runs. The problem is that the man somehow found her address and she agrees with her parents that perhaps it's better if she moves away for a while. She ends up at Mystic Creek, where she gets a job at a perfume shop and is immediately mistaken for someone else.

It turns out that she is is just like Veneta Monroe, an ex of Jonas Sterling, and when he sees her at the shop and she ignores him, he is baffled. Later, they talk and since Jonas is a psychologist, he helps Lane understand a possible reason for her nightmares, which leads them into a mission to find Veneta, who is certainly Lane's twin, especially after they fit the pieces of knowledge they have. However, ti seems Veneta is in danger and how can they help her?

Unlike many other titles (usually the ones published in the 2010s), the more recent ones this author has written aren't as sweet and cozy as I've come to expect of her. The themes are still the same (the setting is still often Oregon or whereabouts) and the characters mostly likable people and who become better by being near others or that learn that friendship and love don't need to come at a price. I've loved some of her books because they also featured a character, usually the heroine, who wasn't at the best moment in her life but being with the right person changed everything. I really loved the romance in those books.

The more recent ones feel less romantic, in my opinion. I've come to realize that most recent stories have all the same elements, but the meaning of them in the story seems to not have the same degree of realism or essence and the overall story feels less emotional. At least, I feel I'm reading about people and situations that, while the same as in other books by the author, just don't have the same importance or I feel they aren't as complex or charismatic.

Jonas is the predictable type of good guy hero, practically perfect and if there are flaws we can see in him is how protective he can be, sometimes more than necessary, or how he seems to like the heroine for traits which should not be what defines her (shyness and modesty and being pleasant, etc.), especially here, because she is the opposite of his ex, who happens to be the heroine's twin sister. I really don't think the author planned on writing this so the twins are full on antagonists, but it feels like it sometimes. The fact Lane and her sister seem to have a emphatic bond, a slight paranormal element here, which helps when Lane is looking for Veneta, only seems to expand the differences, rather than bring them closer.

In the books I liked more by this author, the heroines always had some kind of trouble or were facing a complicated situation or even had some sort of condition which made them, superficially, undesirable for most people (men), but to the hero they were special for who they were, conditions included. The romances weren't perfect but part of the fun was seeing the heroine fall in love and believe that the hero would cherish her no matter what. In this story, the romance between Lane and Jonas was more like a goal to achieve, rather than an organic need they both had to be together. Of course this is the whole point, but I was still a little disappointed their story wasn't stronger.

Lane, as heroine, has pretty much all the traits necessary to make her a good heroine but she was also a little too bland. I would not say she is a "mary sue" type of character, but close. I don't mind this tactic where the heroines written by this author are always sweet and special and shy or unsure of themselves until the romance helps them gain confidence, but not even that was what I saw in this novel. Lane remains the same throughout the story and I failed to see such an evolution in her that turning the pages was more a duty than a pleasure in seeing where she would go next.

The paranormal element, which is to say, the emphatic connection between the twins, wasn't a big deal nor was it complex, the author even included information I assume she got by researching the link between twins which has a lot of publications in medical and scientific journals/magazines, but considering the plot, this wasn't a subject as well used as it could. 

Veneta got herself in trouble to help someone, if I understood correctly, and bad guys were after her so her need for help kind of reached Lane. We learn this had happened before to Lane, probably leftovers from her sister's problems, but did this mean their bond would translate into instant friendship/sibling adoration? Not really.... which was realistic, of course, but then the development made the plot seem a little... irrelevant. I kept thinking, as the plot went on, that things weren't being presented in a way that I'd feel engrossed in what was happening. There were also times I skimmed a few paragraphs.

In the end, this was only average to me, when comparing to other books I tried by the author. That something special which made her stories feel so sweet and everlasting just wasn't here now, nor in some of her more recent books. I would not say she is publishing to say she publishes, but... anyway, it does seem this is her most recent work and nothing has been out in the last three years...

Grade: 6/10