Linda Holmes, NPR correspondent and host of the podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, makes her fiction debut with this bright and lively romantic comedy that charts the course of 33-year-old widowed and childless Eveleth "Evvie" Drake of Calcasset, Maine. A transcriptionist who considers herself "a professional eavesdropper," Evvie saw her life derail when her high school sweetheart-turned-husband, Dr. Tim Drake, died in a car crash on the very day Evvie was packed up and ready to leave him. Family and friends were completely unaware of Tim's dark, abusive side and Evvie's exit plan. This includes Evvie's closest friend, Andy, whose wife walked out on him and their two young children.
The secrecy of Evvie's planned escape on the day of Tim's death riddles her with guilt. And when small-town talk of Tim keeps circling back to Evvie, it only exacerbates her isolation. She holes up like a recluse in their big, old, empty house. But her life changes when 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, heads to the small fishing village of Calcasset to escape the media and paparazzi.
Andy asks Evvie to let Dean rent the small apartment in the back of her house so Dean can have privacy and 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.' "
Over the course of four seasons, the slow reveal of truth and the gaining of trust drive an easy-going narrative that explores an intriguing opposites-attract romantic plot. Dean--who loves to indulge in grilled cheese sandwiches and Pringles chips and has a penchant for old pinball machines--immerses himself in coaching football at the local high school and donates his talents to a nearby minor league baseball team. Evvie, meanwhile, grapples with her past and her identity in the wake of her husband's death. She's also forced to reconfigure her relationship with Andy, who suddenly has less time to spend with Evvie.
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. Strong characterizations and short, well-plotted scenes are filled with clever banter. Holmes has a firm grasp on the realities of everyday life and the difficulties of carving out happiness in the modern world. She understands what makes people hurt and pine, and the forces that ultimately conspire to encourage them to pick up, dust off and start again. Readers will cheer for this richly drawn cast as they swing, sometimes miss and even manage to hit a few home runs off the curveballs of life. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines.
Shelf Talker: A smart romantic comedy about two lost, wounded souls who lean on each other as they step into their futures.