A smart
romantic comedy about two lost, wounded souls who lean on each other as they
step into their futures.
Linda Holmes, host of the NPR podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, makes her
fiction debut with a bright and lively romantic comedy that charts the
course of 33-year-old widowed and childless Eveleth "Evvie" Drake of
Calcasset, Maine. A transcriptionist, Evvie saw her life derail when her
husband, Tim, died in a car crash on the very day Evvie was ready to leave him.
Family and friends were completely unaware of Tim's dark, abusive side and
Evvie's exit plan. This includes her closest friend, Andy, whose wife walked
out on him and their two young children.
Evvie's
planned escape riddles her with guilt. And when small-town talk of Tim keeps
circling back to Evvie, it exacerbates her isolation. But her life changes with
the arrival of Andy's pal Dean Tenney, a pitcher for the New York Yankees who's
struggling with an emotional block that has rendered him unable to throw a
baseball straight.
Andy asks
Evvie to let Dean rent the small apartment in the back of her house so Dean can
have privacy as he attempts to regroup. Evvie agrees, but sets conditions: Dean
will not ask Evvie any questions about her marriage or her deceased husband.
And Evvie will not ask Dean why his successful pitching career tanked to the
point that he's known as "Baseball's Exiled 'Head Case.' "
Evvie Drake Starts Over, ripe with amusing wit and charm, skillfully
explores regret and longing, friendship, love and forgiveness, and the
challenges posed by reinvention. Holmes has a firm grasp on the realities of
everyday life and the difficulties of carving out happiness in the modern
world.
EvvieDrake Starts Over: A Novel by Linda Holmes
Ballantine Books, $27.00 Hardcover, 9780525619246, 304 pages
Publication Date: June 25, 2019
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NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted
with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (June 25, 2019), link HERE