Evvie Drake Starts Over

Author: Linda Holmes
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 2019
Pages: 304
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: 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.

Review: I was hooked from page 1. This novel spoke to me. While I saw pieces of myself in Evvie, all of the characters were authentic. Their actions, reactions, and situations were true-to-life. 

There were moments in this novel that I read and re-read before moving on to the next paragraph or chapter, little nuggets that spoke to me. For example, at one point Dean's parents are asking him if Evvie had pushed him for her benefit, or for his. Had he been sending out signals that she picked up on and in an attempt to be supportive, encouraged him? How often do we do this ourselves. You'll have to read this book for full context, but it was the details that made this book so great.

Hangover.