NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today • “Everything a romantic comedy should be: witty, relatable, and a little complicated.”—PeopleA heartfelt debut about the unlikely relationship between a young woman who’s lost her husband and a major league pitcher who’s lost his game.NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR In a sleepy seaside town in Maine, … THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR
In a sleepy seaside town in Maine, recently widowed Eveleth “Evvie” Drake rarely leaves her large, painfully empty house nearly a year after her husband’s death in a car crash. Everyone in town, even her best friend, Andy, thinks grief keeps her locked inside, and Evvie doesn’t correct them.
Meanwhile, in New York City, Dean Tenney, former Major League pitcher and Andy’s childhood best friend, is wrestling with what miserable athletes living out their worst nightmares call the “yips”: he can’t throw straight anymore, and, even worse, he can’t figure out why. As the media storm heats up, an invitation from Andy to stay in Maine seems like the perfect chance to hit the reset button on Dean’s future.
When he moves into an apartment at the back of Evvie’s house, the two make a deal: Dean won’t ask about Evvie’s late husband, and Evvie won’t ask about Dean’s baseball career. Rules, though, have a funny way of being broken—and what starts as an unexpected friendship soon turns into something more. To move forward, Evvie and Dean will have to reckon with their pasts—the friendships they’ve damaged, the secrets they’ve kept—but in life, as in baseball, there’s always a chance—up until the last out.
A joyful, hilarious, and hope-filled debut, Evvie Drake Starts Over will have you cheering for the two most unlikely comebacks of the year—and will leave you wanting more from Linda Holmes.
Praise for Evvie Drake Starts Over
“A quirky, sweet, and splendid story of a woman coming into her own.”—Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & The Six
“Effortlessly enjoyable . . . [a] pitch-perfect . . . adult love story that is as romantic as it is real.”–USA Today
“Charming, hopeful, and gently romantic . . . Evvie Drake is great company.”—Rainbow Rowell, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eleanor & Park
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Evvie Drake Starts Over is the first novel by NPR podcast host Linda Holmes. Evvie Drake is a young widow who seems to be stuck by the day her husband, Doctor Tim Drake, was killed in a car accident. When she got the phone call she was in the process of packing up her car to leave. She is now paralyzed by her guilt.
Major league pitcher Dean Tenney has lost his mojo. It happened suddenly. It seems one day he was at the top of his game, the next he has trouble hitting the side of a barn. This phenomenon, called the yips, is not new with him, many ball players in the past have suffered through it. However, everything that has been tried has failed. He has hung up his glove and now wants to get away somewhere that he can live without being accosted by former fans.
Single father Andy Buck is good friends with both Evvie and Dean and lives in a small Maine town where Evvie also lives. When he learns Dean is trying to escape the big city, he hatches a plan to get Evvie to rent the apartment off the back of her house to Dean. And, she does.
Evvie and Dean form an easy friendship. Each of them feels comfortable sharing way more of their pasts with each other than they have felt comfortable doing with others. And this easiness transfers to their lives. Friendship translates to a deeper relationship and this then becomes a more intimate friendship. They seem to be a salve to mend each other’s wounded souls
His minor pitching success at a hometown event carries over to an invitation from a national team, and that then becomes a parting of their ways. And here they each have the time to find the person they have grown to be.
This is a very interesting story dealing with a person’s history, hurts, and resilience. With very strong characters, a wonderfully descriptive background, and a whisper of hope, the storyteller has brought a unique tale to her readers. This is a thoughtful story which not only did I enjoy, I also recommend.
I was lucky enough to win an early copy of this Linda Holmes novel. It totally fit one of my favorite types of women’s fiction and romance, what I call “grown up” love stories. Evvie and Dean both have complicated lives and wounds in their pasts that take real work to figure out–individually and together. Their feelings for each other grow not only out of attraction, but respect. Along the way, we’re treated to a delicious blend of witty banter, baseball, small-town charm, complicated friendships, and pop culture references. Definitely a great novel to pick up this summer if you enjoy romance or women’s fiction–or stories involving baseball, Maine, and/or small towns.