3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars for GoodReads.

If it was Dean Tenney Starts Over, it could have been five stars for me. Then Evvie would be the love interest instead of the main character. I just didn't care for or about her. I almost stopped reading the book in the beginning because her story line didn't grab me. I liked Evvie's supporting people like her dad, her BFF and his daughters, even the seaside Maine town itself.

The parts I enjoyed most were about Dean and his struggles to transition into a life without baseball. Those sections were where this book really shined. His frustrations, the scrutiny of the merciless New York media, the endless avenues of treatment to try and regain his fast ball. It reminded me of a the great writing found in a feature article in Sports Illustrated - and I loved that!. The scene with the pine cone and the scene with Dean teaching Evvie to pitch were excellent. There are enough explanations of things like "the yips" to educate a non-baseball fan enough to understand what he's working through. Dean could easily been cast as a jerk or a badboy. Instead he reaches out and makes new connections with Andrew's extended family and the community.

*I received an advance copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher and I am required to disclose that in my review in compliance with federal law.*

A witty romance that begins with a wife who is set to leave her husband when she gets a call that he has been in a car accident. A baseball pitcher for the Yankees gets the yips and needs a place to lay low. These two characters make up the story of getting your life back. Well -written, poignant story.


Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

Evvie Drake Starts Over is a book that has it all - it’s relatable, complex, heartbreaking, witty, romantic, and heartwarming. Linda Holmes made sure you really got to know Evvie and her relationships with her deceased husband, best friend, and tenant. I loved the story, but it did take me a little bit to get into it. After about 30% in though, I was hooked!

I loved this book and will be recommending it to anyone I see this summer.
Evvie is such a like-able and complex character, and while the basic story is one that everyone's seen or read a thousand times, Linda Holmes made it seem fresh and new with realistic supporting characters, a lovely setting, and great storytelling.

Evvie Drake isn't exactly a recluse, at least not on the outside. Since her husband died the year before, she's kept her life and the people in it to a limited number. She has her best friend Andy and his daughters. She has her work. She has hundreds of books to read. She also has bills and a too-big house with an apartment, so when Andy has a friend - a former professional athlete with the yips who was forced into early retirement - looking for a place outside New York to start over, Evvie can add landlady to the list of things she does. The two both have their dark spots, their secrets, their demons that they don't quite know how to face or what to do with. They also don't quite know what to make of each other, at least at first. I thought this book was charming and thoughtful, and while a bit on the nose at times (more than a few times, I had that 'I know where this is headed' feeling), and I'd definitely read more by Holmes in the future.

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley!!

Evvie is recently widowed. Her husband passed away about a year ago after a car crash.
Her best friend's name is Andy.
Dean is a former professional baseball player in a slump. Andy invites him down for a visit, and dean thinks is the perfect opportunity for a "reset." Dean moves into an apartment at the back of Evvie's house. They make a deal to not ask about the dead husband or the baseball career.
What starts as a friendship quickly turns into something much more heated.
The characters are well-developed and so easy to like/cheer for.

I loved this book! I'm a huge fan of Linda's from PCHH and was psyched to get an early copy. The writing was great and the characters were engaging. Fun without being cheesy. LOVED.

Evvie Drake Starts Over is a novel about just that- starting over. For Evvie it means life after the death of her husband and for Dean it means life after the death of his career.

This book had an easygoing feel to it. It flowed nicely from chapter to chapter, season to season, high to low.
The friendship between Evvie and her best friend Andy was something everyone wants to have and was enjoyable to read. While parts of the book were predictable, I didn’t mind. It was a light read that is perfect for basking in the hammock on a warm spring day.

Would read again.

This book just wasn't for me. It was such a slow start, I felt like it didn't really start to flow until the 70% mark, but then towards the end...it slowed down again. The main character, Evvie, has a ton of baggage and a ton of sadness that needs to be addressed, but the book wants to treat it more like a light-hearted romance. Then add the male lead, Dean, and he comes with his own major issues to deal with, but again, we'll wait a hundred pages and then we'll ignore his problems and just be glad he has a non-serious relationship with Evvie.

So slow, boring characters, and it just never finds its rhythm.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of Evvie Drake Starts Over.
All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Oh, this was a heartwarmer! I could not put this novel down. I was rooting for Evvie's eventual happiness from the beginning. Dean was an amazing character, so lovable, flawed and perfect for the attention of Evvie--who is also wonderfully flawed. I was fully emotionally invested...and was taken by surprise when l fell in love with this story. (I was even more surprised when--towards the end--it made me cry!)
Thank you to NetGalley and Linda Holmes for the ARC!!!

I have been a huge Linda Holmes fan for a decade, following her all around the internet, so I have been eagerly awaiting her debut novel. She is a masterful wordsmith, writing sentences that stopped me in my tracks. She is a smart and humane observer of people and has created fully realized, realistic human characters in this beautiful love story.
This is a book I will return to again and again. It touched me deeply and I can't wait for everyone to read it.

Evvie Drake Starts Over is a sweet and kinda quirky read that I really enjoyed. However, I think it was a little bit too hyped up for me (so many people are obsessed with it!) that I felt like it was a little bit of a letdown. But I know it's not the book's fault other people hyped it up to me, so I don't let those preconceived notions cloud my review.

The book starts with Evvie getting ready to leave her husband. She even has the car packed! But before she can even pull away from the house, she gets the news that her husband has died. Flash forward a couple years and Evvie is still consumed with grief mostly fueled by guilt. When her best friend, Andy, asks if his friend Dean can move into the separate apartment in her house, she agrees. Dean is an incredibly successful MLB player who has suddenly stopped being able to pitch. He leaves NYC and heads to the middle of Maine to get away from the press and angry fans. He and Evvie become friends and agree not to discuss their issues (her husband and his pitching).

It's hard not to fall in love with Evvie. Though she can be frustrating at times, she's such a sweet girl with a good heart. Dean is also an incredibly likable character and I'm sure most people will find themselves cheering on the both of them.

It's a charming, sweet, and romantic book that isn't cheesy or overdone. For me, there was just a little something missing and I can't put my finger on exactly what it is. I think the best way for me to describe it is to say that I really enjoyed reading the book, but I don't really see myself ever picking it up again for a re-read. But that's OK and not necessarily the only indicator of a great book.

This book was truly a joy! Evvie (rhymes with Chevy) is charming in a way that seems extremely real and not at all put on. Dean moves into her guest house and the two of them bond (obviously). I truly feel in love with all the characters, and even relatively minor ones feel fleshed out in a way that brings the book to life. I cannot recommend this enough! There is enough food for thought that I think it could be a great book club book, but it is also light enough that I read it in two sittings and couldn't stop thinking about it when I was away.

I have long been a fan of Linda Holmes so I have been looking forward to this book for ages and it did not disappoint at all!

Minor spoiler/content warning about the book: Evvie was emotionally abused by her husband which, while treated sensitively, is a recurring discussion in the book

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

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.

Evvie and Dean are hilarious and seem to be made for one another.
Thanks, NetGalley for the advance copy.

Evvie Drake has lost her husband. Dean Tenny, a major league pitcher has lost his pitching arm. When Dean comes to refresh in Maine, he moves into Evvie's empty apartment. Can they help each other get over their grief and find happiness in their new lives? This is a smart modern story of love and grief. At times funny and at times heartbreaking, Linda Holmes has some wise words about how grief can affect one's life. Set in a small atmospheric town in Maine (you can almost feel the ocean breezes through the page), the reader gets to know Evvie and Dean's friends and relatives. The book is fun and modern, filled with lots pop culture references. Don't miss this wonderful book! Thank you to Netgalley for the e-copy.

evvie drake was packing the car to leave her husband, when she gets a call that he’s been in a fatal car accident. evvie struggles to come to terms that her seemingly ‘perfect’ life on the outside, was less so on the inside.—she told no one. she struggles through he guilt of pretending she’s grieving her husband while learning how to become her own person for the first time in her adult life.

I was so excited to read this, since I've been a fan of Linda Holmes's work for years - I love listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour and have been rooting for her to finish and release her book since she announced that she was working on it. This was such a fun read, and I spent a lot of time reading it outdoors in the sunshine (which was a great place to read this book). I loved:

-spending time with these characters, and especially loved Evvie's relationship with her best friend, Andy.
-the setting in a small town in Maine, and all the anecdotes and gossip that come along with being in a place where everyone knows you and expects you to act in a certain way
-the depiction of Evvie's marriage and the slow unraveling of details about it

This was heartwarming and charming, with more complex issues under the surface as well. I had fun spending time with this story.

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a great rom-com for a few reasons:

1. The characters have problems but they’re also mature adults. There are no contrived misunderstandings that take half the novel to resolve.

2. It’s really witty. There are so many great lines.

I anticipate this novel being a hit this summer and with good reason. It’s smart and funny and romantic (but it explicit) and really it’s about putting on your big girl panties to do what you know you need to do, and realizing that you can’t do it alone.

The only thing I don’t love is the title.

Appealing and quirky story about the healing of a young widow, Evelyn Drake. Only her emotional isolation is not due to grief, as everyone in her small town believes, but because she feels guilty about hiding the fact that she had stopped loving her husband and was planning on leaving him when he died.

These emotional cross-currents keep her in a pretty reclusive state for far too long, except for weekly breakfasts with her platonic friend Andy, a divorced father. When Andy's best friend Dean moves to town to escape from endless media scrutiny over his sudden inability to pitch at the major league level, he rents Evvie's spare apartment.

And while the expected relationship does develop, the friendship and companionship builds first as they both work on trust. Both immensely likable characters, Dean and Evvie are decent people who have a lot of work to do to put the past behind them and enjoy the happiness of the present.

And it is much appreciated that her love for Dean doesn't "cure" or "save" Evvie. Rather she finds her own solutions and builds herself a secure place where she is comfortable by herself. Thanks much to the publisher and to Net Galley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Enjoyed this book about a woman trying to get her life back on track. It's a charming read with friendship, romance, broken dreams, and making the most out of life. It'll stick with you after you're done.