I absolutely LOVED this book. It was exactly what I needed at the right time - funny, smart, witty, thoughtful, sad, heartbreaking and heartwarming all at once. It was really the ideal contemporary romance novel - charming and swoon-worthy with characters that were actually well developed and relatable. Plus it had baseball and Minnesota references? Sign me up any day. I'm looking forward to rereading this many times when I need a comforting, warm story!

Linda Holmes is my favorite person working in media and when I heard she was writing a book, I was excited but also a little nervous that I wouldn't love it. But I needn't have worried, because I did love it. It's a warm, charming, lazy river ride of a story about moving on and starting over and being an adult human in the world. The relationships feel real, the romance is swoon worthy, and it's cozy but also smart, which is just the best.

This was fine! It's nice to see a romance about adults who are actually adults.

Evvie is a recent widow. Dean is a World Series champion pitcher whose career has been derailed by the sudden onset of the yips. Their mutual friend Andy arranges for Dean to rent an apartment in Evvie's house for a time while he figures out his next step in life and this catalyzes Evvie to figure out what she wants out of her future and forces her to admit how she really felt about her marriage.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Ballantine Books for an advanced read in exchange for this review.
Evvie lost her husband nearly a year ago. Since then, she has barely left her house. Her friends and family think it is due to her grief, including her best friend Andy. She doesn’t tell them what is really happening and how her marriage really was.
Dean Tennery is a former MLB pitcher who now has the yips and cannot pitch anymore. He’s best friends with Andy and is looking for a place to stay to get away from the media. He makes arrangements to stay in Evvie’s guest house. They form a deal – she can’t ask about him about baseball, and he won’t ask her about her marriage. The two quickly form an unexpected friendship and realize they have to process the past in order to move forward.
I loved this book! It was full of subtle and not so subtle humor, as well as characters that you want to root for. The story felt so authentic and full of heart. The way the author writes about two different styles of grief – the end of a long career for no explained reason and a marriage that was not great – made me feel like a close friend in the story. I laughed, I wanted to cry, and there were moments that just gave me warm fuzzy feelings. Great read. One of my favorites this year for sure.

A fun, interesting book with great characters. Even the baseball parts were pretty good. :) All these characters really felt like real people. And the process - for everyone - of how to start over was just fascinating.

Evvie Drake Starts Over is wry, bittersweet and utterly delightful.

I think my note to myself in Chapter 17 sums it up, “Sweet. Bittersweet. Damn, Linda Holmes, just damn.”

Holmes deftly intertwines Evvie and Dean’s individual struggles with grief and loss, peppering it with humor, banter, and the age-old ‘When Harry Met Sally’ question, “Can men and women ever really be just friends?”

In some ways, Evvie Drake Starts Over is a modern throwback — to when movies were about women’s lives, or about baseball (usually starring Kevin Costner). In Evvie Drake, you get both, though Costner's not who I picture when I think of Dean Tenney. I loved that Holmes really did her homework about players who get the yips, that mental health and therapy are portrayed openly and honestly, and that we also get a few of those romantic, picture perfect movie moments.

Review will post in May on dailywaffle.com. Links will be updated when available.

Starting over is never easy and Evvie gives readers a good lesson in just how hard it can be. Life is hard but there is always positive that comes from negative.

Overall, I thought this was a great read that was engaging throughout. Evvie’s character is much more complex then A typical read about a widow. Her inner struggle of her past relationship secrets and how it effects her current ones is the unique aspect of this story. As a reader you connect with her and are cheering for her successes.

What a love.y book about Maine, love, grief, friendship and baseball. Aw, that Evvie was such a special character, totally relatable. Pick up this book and you will be happy 😃

Thank you to net galley for this book. I am a big NPR pop culture happy hour fan. I didn’t know what type of book I was expecting but I was pleased with a romance with slightly older man and woman and giving the woman a very interesting and different background with a platonic male friend.

I loved the descriptions of the town in Maine and could see myself at the diner eating blueberry pancakes.

I don’t want to totally spoil but I really enjoyed that therapy was given such a positive spin and that it can really help just about anybody.

If you’re looking to lose yourself in a good book over a weekend choose this one by Linda Holmes.

If charm were a book, this would be it.

I found the story of Evvie, new widow, and Dean, a baseball pitcher in disgrace, sweet, fun, and so charming.

The book begins with Evvie deciding to change a few things in her life, only to be told her husband has died in a car crash. Now her entire small Maine town things Evvie is paralyzed with grief, including her best friend and recent divorced dad, Andy.

With no one she can tell the truth, Evvie forms a fast friendship with Dean, a former Yankee experiencing the yips, who is Andy's childhood friend and Evvie's new tenant.

The two slowly start a flirtation while dealing with so much history and secrets.

I love NPR, but I have never heard Pop Culture Happy Hour. If that show is written anything like this book however, I have a brand new favorite radio program. Move aside Ira Glass. Ms. Holmes has a strong voice and a great talent to create realistic, delightful characters. I loved this book.

Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley.com for my advanced reader copy.

Evvie Drake is about to leave her husband, and then he suddenly dies. Consumed by guilt, and scarred by what we will come to understand was an abusive relationship, she is frozen, unable to function beyond bare survival. She spends every day in her big house in a small town in Maine, fearful and inert.

Dean Tennant, a washed-up major-league pitcher, moves to town to rest his soul and hide from abusive publicity as he comes to terms with the end of his career. He rents a suite from Evvie, and you can guess the rest. But how they get where they’re going is a fresh, enjoyable read, written by a very capable debut author. What sets this story apart was the smart, sharp writing. It’s a romance, but it’s women’s fiction, too, and it’s a coming-of-age story as well. Given that, you’d expect some sighs and eye rolling, some exhaling, some dish-throwing. There’s that. But I haven’t read a smarter example of the form in a long time.

Linda Holmes writes in what seems to me to be a relatively spare fashion. She doesn’t belabor or overstate. She lets the reader’s mind fill in the blanks. Her characters are allowed to be smart, witty, weak, sexy, and even dangerous. When she describes the capabilities of a ML pitcher as similar to a big cat hunting, just before it pounces...Even though you’re prepared for it, you’re still shocked. You get a little thrill from reading this. You learn something.

That’s another thing. Holmes has an interesting background and current day job (former lawyer, NPR correspondent, host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, etc.) which adds richness to her writing.

So this is a romance, but it’s also about two impressive people coming to terms with the fact that they’ve reached adulthood damaged. Dean must accept his fate as former star, and Evvie will learn that she is codependent and needs to set boundaries. The latter is so relatable.

As I read this novel, I felt excited to think I’ve discovered a great new author. I hope Linda Holmes writes fast.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this book.

What a fun book to read!!! The characters are a joy with all their quirks and imperfections. And the dialogue is "spot on." I read this in a day and hated to see it end but happy for the experience.

Evvie Drake Starts Over is a nice wholesome book with a likeable protagonist, and I really enjoyed reading it! After some tense thrillers, it was a refreshing change of pace to read Linda Holmes’ novel. The novel follows two people with very different lives who have to learn how to “start over.” Evvie is recovering from the death of an emotionally abusive husband and is coming to terms with her lack of remorse for his passing. Dean is a former incredibly successful baseball player who can no longer seem to pitch to save his life. As the book progresses Evvie and Dean find themselves working together to help each other move on.

Most of the fun of Evvie Drake Starts Over is its constant subversion of tropes. Evvie isn't a mourning widow, but rather mourns her inability to mourn. She never falls for her male best friend, nor he for her, and while she's jealous of his new girlfriend, they soon become friends themselves. And while the romance between Evvie and Dean is on the tropey side, it's diminished by Evvie's immediate realization that she's being set up for a romance to bud. As with any similar romance movie or novel, it's obvious how it's going to end up, but unlike most movies and novels, there's no pretense that it will end any other way. As a result, it becomes all about the journey, making it that much more enjoyable.

The book's final section is a bit of a disappointment - it seems poorly paced and relies far too heavily on one of my least favorite types of plots: "This could all be resolved if only these characters actually communicated like normal human beings." Still, the way in which the ending comes about is a bit of a twist, and getting there through the first three-quarters of the book is so enjoyable it's hard not to forgive. Likewise, although it sometimes seems as though Holmes is trying to get into existential issues she never truly addresses, they're easy to forget about in the face of the fun, silly romance.

Verdict: 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5.

What a gem! This book was such a wonderful read. I absolutely love Linda Holmes writing style - she really knows how to write a book so beautifully. Evvie is such a great character with so much love and light in her. I loved learning about her story and how she connects with Dean. One of my favorite parts of this book is the refreshing way that Dean and Evvie talk to one another. They don’t hold back and lay it all out on the line. That’s what you always look for in a great relationship and I loved to read about their relationship evolving. The secondary characters are written so well into this book and by the end of the book I felt as though all of the characters were my friends and I loved reading about their lives. I have so many wonderful parts of the book bookmarked and highlighted and I can’t wait to re-read them again. Loved this book - definitely a five star read from me. **ARC provided by NetGalley and Random House Publishing. All opinions are my own**

In one word....perfection! Evvie Drake Starts Over is a story about love and loss, and is absolutely raw and realistic, giving me all the feels. Evvie and Dean are instantly likable characters, you cannot help but get sucked in as the pages fly by. Warm, witty, heart wrenching, hopeful, romantic, and sexy, with an added bonus of baseball, it's no wonder I absolutely LOVED this book! I sincerely look forward to reading more from Linda Holmes in the future. Thank you Netgalley and Ballentine books for the ARC!

This is an easy, fun read with real characters you can't help but root for. Plus, a great platonic male-female best friend relationship.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the ARC.

It took a little bit of time to really get immersed in this book, and the stick-to-it plan worked. Evvie, Dean and the rest of the cast become so realistic and magnetic that it's easy to feel very invested in their steps. Dialogue shines in this stellar novel [I don't go to 5-stars after a slowish start normally, but this book revved up its energy and hooked me.) Linda Holmes is a genius at plotting, surprises, and natural growth of relationships. Top-notch flirting here, which is one of my favorite things that I don't always see or feel in a romance. A nice, light read perfect for a Sunday or a vacation day. This is one you'll want to savor.

Solid 4.5 stars.

Thanks to Netgalley for letting me download an uncorrected proof of this book. I nearly lost a night’s sleep over it because I didn’t want to stop reading. The story flows smoothly and enticingly, and the characters feel like real people, flawed and relatable, and, most of all, human to their very core. The gradual unveiling of Evvie’s past wasn’t a great mystery, but it enhanced the story’s arc. I appreciated the mental health plot line.

I also connected to how true the depiction of real friendship between Evvie and Andy felt. And, of course, the love story between Dean and Evvie is subtle and relatable.

I’ve liked everything Linda Holmes has done over the years, and I’m supremely glad she’s ventured into the book world.

Review appears on Goodreads.