Maple & Moonlight by Daphne Elliot
Maplewood #2
Small Town Contemporary Romance
April 27, 2026
🍂Single Mom
🍂New in Town
🍂Neighbors
🍂Hurt/Comfort
🍂Grumpy Maple Farmer
🍂Protective
As a single mom rebuilding my life from scratch, I don’t need help. And I definitely don’t need the attention of a six-foot-three maple farmer with a beard and a hero complex who looks at me like I’m a problem he didn’t sign up for.
My landlord is broad-shouldered, permanently unimpressed, and entirely too comfortable telling me when I’m wrong. I think he’s grumpy, rigid, and overprotective. He thinks I’m chaos in Crocs.
Falling for Josh Lawrence was never part of the plan.
But then he starts showing up.
For my son when he’s overwhelmed.
For my daughters when they need someone steady.
And for me when my hands won’t stop shaking.
I didn’t come to Vermont looking for a protector. I don’t need rescuing. But somewhere between harvest festivals, pumpkin canoe races, and quiet mornings in the sugar shack, the man I swore was just an annoyance becomes my safe place.
And when my dangerous past resurfaces and threatens the new life I’ve built, the grumpy maple farmer next door becomes my fiercest protector, ready to stand by my side while I fight for my family.
Because it turns out maple farmers are a lot like their trees: quiet, stubborn, and surprisingly sweet when the pressure builds.
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Maple & Moonlight by Daphne Elliot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
ARC REVIEW
#RealTalk: Daphne Elliot was put on this earth to write this story. This is the writing I became obsessed with merely a year ago! This is the reason she can have all my money every time!
The fact that I have to wait 3 more weeks for this outstanding feelgood story to hit my ears is a travesty! But I shall overcome …
I felt this story on a deep personal level because, reasons. I did a lot of crying while I read this story. It wasn’t “angst” crying but rather more of a “I feel you and I see you” kind of emotion and I just couldn’t hold it in on a lot of occasions. I had no idea the personal connection that I would have to this story before I began and truth be told, I might have chosen not to read it if I had. I am ridiculously glad that I experienced this journey.
In the “content warning” portion of the book there’s a statement that states “if you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.” That’s one of the truest statements that I have ever read in my life! My personal life and experience tell me of its rightness. Because of this, it is one of the most difficult circumstances to incorporate in a story, imo, but Daphne slayed! I am not sure I have ever been this impressed with a story that holds these circumstances. The level of respect and integrity I felt pour from this story made me awestruck. Maple & Moonlight will sit at the very TOP of my top reads for 2026.
Everyone in this story grew and developed in one way or another. The children, Josh and Celine grew as individuals and also as a unit. Celine & Josh grew as friends and as a couple. There was potential for all of this growth in this story and Daphne made sure to take advantage of that and nurture it and leave no one behind. There are a lot of deeply emotional moments (again, not dramatic angst) in this story but also a whole lot of fun and humor. It was a perfect blend and my romance fiction loving heart loved every moment of it. The story is incredibly relatable and very realistic and flowed organically. I honestly can’t think of a single moment I twitched.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
In High School, Daphne Elliot was voted “most likely to become a romance novelist.” After spending the last decade as a corporate lawyer, she has finally embraced her destiny. Her small town steamy novels are filled with flirty banter, sexy hijinks, and lots and lots of heart.
Daphne is a coffee-drinking, hot-sauce loving introvert who spends all her free time in her garden. She lives on a small farm in New England with her husband, two kids, two dogs, twelve backyard chickens and a hive of Italian honeybees.
Keep in touch with Daphne by subscribing to her newsletter here: http://daphneelliot.com/join-newsletter
Connect with Daphne Elliot: https://linktr.ee/daphneelliot
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