Evvie Drake Starts Over

What's inside (8 sections)

1. The deal in the back apartment
2. Late night talks and a pinball trip
3. What Andy learns and what it costs
4. The charity game and the first real date
5. Coming apart before coming clear
6. Why it works and where it strains
7. Key takeaways
8. FAQ

I picked up Evvie Drake Starts Over because a friend said it was the rare romance where both people feel like adults. She was right. Linda Holmes published it with Ballantine Books in 2019, a 304 page hardcover with ISBN 9780525619246, and I read it across three evenings on the couch with tea going cold beside me. It is set in a sleepy seaside town in Maine, and it follows a young widow and a former Major League pitcher who end up sharing a house while both of them are stuck. The hook is simple. The execution is what makes it stick.

A quick note before the walkthrough. This is a full summary, so the whole plot is coming, including how things end. If you want to meet Evvie and Dean without knowing where they land, read the book first. It moves fast and the dialogue is a large part of the fun.

Eveleth Shaw Drake, called Evvie, is thirty three and living alone in a big house that feels too large for one person. Her husband Tim died in a car crash almost a year ago. Everyone in town thinks she is frozen by grief. She lets them think it. She works from home as a transcriptionist, typing up interviews for clients around the country, which means she can go days with little contact beyond her best friend Andy and her father. She leaves the house for Saturday breakfast with Andy. Otherwise she stays inside.

What nobody knows is the part Evvie cannot say out loud. Her marriage to Tim was bad. Tim grew up in the same town, became a beloved local doctor, and charmed almost everyone around him. At home he was cold and cruel in ways that left no marks. He mocked Evvie, controlled small choices, and made her feel small on purpose. She had loved him since they were young, and that history made it harder to admit what the marriage had become. By the night he died, she had a suitcase in the car and cash in the glove compartment. She was leaving. Then the phone rang.

That phone call shapes the entire book. Evvie did not cause the accident. Still, she carries a specific guilt. She feels relief mixed with sorrow, and relief feels unforgivable to her. She also feels robbed of the exit she had chosen for herself. Leaving would have been her decision, her proof that she could act. Instead she became a widow, a role the town respects, and the respect feels false. So she stays quiet and stays home. Her father tells people how strong she is. Andy worries. Neighbors bring food. Evvie accepts the kindness because correcting it would require telling the truth about Tim, and she is not ready.

I found this opening stronger than most romance setups. Evvie is tired, prickly in places, and honest with herself only in flashes. Same breakfast. Same rooms. Same silence in the back apartment. You see why she clings to routine and why it cannot last.

The deal in the back apartment

The change arrives through Andy. Andy is Evvie's best friend, a steady and funny presence who shows up every Saturday. He also happens to have grown up with Dean Tenney. Dean was a star pitcher for the New York Yankees until something strange and public happened. In the middle of a game, he lost the ability to throw straight. Not from injury. From what players call the yips, a mental block that turns a motion practiced ten thousand times into something foreign and frightening. He started bouncing pitches, hitting stands, walking batters. The press circled. The team ran out of patience. Dean says he is done with baseball. He wants quiet.

Andy proposes a practical fix. Evvie has an attached apartment sitting empty. Dean needs a place to hide from reporters and think. Rent would help Evvie. Company might help both of them. Evvie agrees after some hesitation, partly because Andy asks and partly because the house is too quiet.

Dean drives up from New York and moves into the back unit. He is polite, low key, and clearly trying to be small in someone else's space. He cooks a little. He runs. He avoids sports talk. Evvie is polite back, with clear edges. Then they make the deal that gives the middle of the book its shape. He will not ask about Tim. She will not ask about baseball. It sounds mature. It is really avoidance with rules.

What I like here is how Holmes writes new housemates. Who uses the driveway. How loud is too loud. Whether to share dinner or nod in the hall. Their talks start short, then stretch longer at the kitchen table. The pact lets them be close without being honest, which comforts for a while and limits soon after.

The town adds pressure. Everyone knows whose car is parked where. Evvie's status as Tim's widow follows her into the grocery store. Dean's face was on television, so hiding on the coast does not stay secret for long. People mean well. They also stare.

Late night talks and a pinball trip

Once the house settles, the book finds its rhythm. Evvie and Dean start eating together. He helps with chores. She tells him which neighbors to avoid. One night she realizes he leaves at odd hours. He has been going to a deserted local field in the cold to throw alone. At 2 a.m.

That detail matters. Dean claims he has accepted the end of his career. His body says otherwise. He keeps throwing because pitching was his identity since childhood, and he does not know what replaces it. Holmes folds in real cases like Chuck Knoblauch, whose throws became wild enough to reach the stands. The point stays on Dean. He is not injured in a way a scan can show. He is stuck between knowing how to pitch and being unable to do it when it counts.

Evvie has her own version of throwing in the dark. She starts telling Dean small true things she has told no one. That Tim could turn warm at a dinner party and cold in the car home. That she stopped inviting friends over. Saying it aloud shakes her. Dean listens without trying to fix it, which no one has done for her in years.

Their friendship widens. Andy and his girlfriend Monica have them over. Monica is warm and new enough to see dynamics Andy misses. Thanksgiving lands hard. Evvie's father raises a glass to his brave daughter who survived the year alone, and Evvie smiles through it while feeling sick. Later Dean tells her plainly that the toast was built on a false story. Then he ends their deal himself. They should stop avoiding the two subjects that define their lives. He kisses her on the forehead and leaves her to think.

My favorite stretch comes shortly after. Dean buys a vintage pinball machine near Boston and asks Evvie to ride along to haul it back. The trip is loose and funny, full of wrong turns and diner food. On the road he admits he wants to kiss her properly. Evvie says she is not ready. He accepts it without sulking. Wanting is allowed. Pressure is not.

Back home, Dean starts teaching Evvie to pitch. She is terrible at first, which gives them both something to laugh about. For Dean, breaking the motion into pieces for a beginner loosens something in his own head. For Evvie, learning a skill apart from grief reminds her she can be bad at something and keep going.

What Andy learns and what it costs

Secrets in a small town do not hold. Andy finds out that Evvie had packed to leave Tim the night he died. He learns it sideways, not from her, and the hurt is sharp. He sat with her through a year of mourning that was partly performance. They miss Saturday breakfasts for weeks.

Holmes handles this fight well. Andy is not wrong for feeling misled. Evvie is not wrong for staying silent. Both have a case. When they finally talk, it is messy. Voices rise. Old jokes fall flat. Monica helps by refusing to pick a side and insisting they listen longer than is comfortable.

Evvie's father is a separate knot. He loved Tim and praises his daughter as a loyal widow, which keeps her trapped in the role. Confronting him means risking the approval she has leaned on. Holmes does not make him cruel. She makes him limited. He wants a simple story about a good marriage cut short. Evvie has to tell him the marriage was not good. That scene is quiet and painful. It does not fix everything. It opens air.

A fair criticism belongs here. The middle leans on withheld information to keep tension high. Each secret makes sense alone. Stacked together, the plot sometimes circles the same talk without moving forward. I kept reading because the voices stayed sharp, but readers who dislike slow burns may feel the sag near the middle.

The charity game and the first real date

Baseball returns through a side door. The local Calcasset Claws host a charity game, and someone recruits Dean to pitch an inning. No scouts. No talk radio. Just a small crowd and friends in the stands. Evvie kisses him before he takes the mound. He throws well. Not perfect. Well enough to feel hope without pretending the yips are cured.

That night reorders things. Dean asks Evvie to dinner at a hotel restaurant the following week. They dress up. They laugh too loud. Holmes lets joy sit beside fear here. Evvie likes being seen with him and also wants to keep it secret. She worries the town will read her as the widow who moved on too fast. Dean worries he is reading too much into one good outing.

They keep dating quietly for a bit. Hiding feels familiar to Evvie, and familiar is not always healthy. Still, the early dates have charm. Phone calls that run long. Small gifts that show attention rather than money. They are not kids falling hard. They are adults checking each step.

Meanwhile Dean meets with a pitching coach to test a comeback. Mechanics look sound on video. Breathing work helps. Then live batters step in and the old panic returns. The coach is kind and honest. Progress would take long work with no assured outcome. Dean has to decide what he wants. Does he miss pitching itself, or does he miss being the person who could pitch.

Evvie faces a mirror question. Transcription pays the bills but keeps her isolated. The big house crowds every room with memory. She starts asking what a chosen life would look like. Smaller rooms. More people. These questions arrive as small decisions. She says yes to dinner. She calls Monica back. She walks to town instead of driving around it.

Coming apart before coming clear

Almost every romance needs a break, and this one earns it. Dean decides he is done chasing a return to professional ball. Underneath sits grief he has not processed. He picks a fight with Evvie, where both say true things in unfair ways. He accuses her of keeping him secret. She accuses him of quitting early. He moves out at the end of summer.

The pages after he leaves are the hardest and the best. Alone, Evvie drops groceries in the kitchen and falls apart on the tile. Jars roll. Milk spreads. She sits in the mess and cries. Then she calls Andy. Not to perform strength. To ask for help and to apologize without excuses. She tells the full story about Tim, including the planned departure. Andy listens, gets angry, stays.

What follows is practical rather than magical. Evvie starts therapy. She adopts a dog, which forces walks and chats with neighbors. She looks at a smaller house closer to town. She sets firmer limits with her father while thanking him for care. Holmes deserves credit for letting this growth happen while Dean is gone. Evvie does not heal because a man stays. She heals because she asks for support and does the daily work.

Dean does his own work off page, which is both a strength and a weakness. Keeping him away lets Evvie stand on her own. It also means his shift happens mostly in summary. I wanted one more scene of him with the coach or old teammates, something concrete to match Evvie's therapy and house hunt.

The reunion is quiet on purpose. Dean returns and finds Evvie in her new place. No grand speech in the rain. He says he wants to try again, as partners who tell the truth faster this time. She says yes with conditions, including that they will not hide. They attend Andy and Monica's wedding together. Two people who know how to leave choosing to stay.

Why it works and where it strains

The strength of the book is voice. Holmes spent years hosting Pop Culture Happy Hour, and her ear for how friends talk shows. Banter carries information without sounding like exposition. Jokes land because characters use humor to dodge, then to connect. Even minor scenes, like hauling the pinball machine or suffering through a family toast, stay readable because people sound like themselves.

The second strength is fairness to both leads. Neither person is fixed by love. Baseball does not cure grief. A new relationship does not erase a bad marriage. Starting over means telling clearer stories about the past and building new habits, like therapy and honest fights. That message stays grounded because progress is partial. Dean still feels the yips in his shoulders. Evvie still flinches when someone calls her brave for the wrong reason.

Still, a few strains show. The plot leans on coincidence. Andy just happens to know a famous pitcher who needs the exact apartment Evvie has. The town accepts Dean with mild curiosity rather than a media swarm. Tim's cruelty is told more than shown, which keeps the book from turning dark but also keeps him vague. None of this broke the spell for me, but readers who prefer tight plotting may notice the seams.

I also wished for more of Monica and Andy as a pair. Monica arrives as a balancing force and then steps back when the leads need room. Their wedding at the end feels right, yet I wanted more scenes of Evvie learning from a healthy couple up close. How do two people argue and stay kind. The book gestures at answers. It could have lingered longer.

Read it for the company. Evvie is good company once she lets you in. Dean is good company once he stops performing ease. The romance grows from shared meals and small risks rather than grand gestures. By the last fifty pages, I cared less about whether Dean would ever pitch in the majors again and more about whether Evvie would keep telling the truth when it would be easier to smile. Starting over, it turns out, is less about a fresh partner than about refusing the old script in the same rooms where you once read it.

If you like romances where people talk through problems, where humor and hurt share the same scene, and where the ending feels hopeful rather than sealed, this one will suit you. Keep a light schedule. The chapters invite one more.

FAQ

When was Evvie Drake Starts Over published?

Ballantine Books published it on June 25, 2019 in the United States. The first hardcover runs 304 pages with ISBN 9780525619246.

Is Evvie Drake Starts Over part of a series?

No. It is a standalone novel. Evvie and Dean's story starts and ends here, though Holmes later wrote Flying Solo with a similar small town feel.

What are the yips that end Dean's pitching career?

The yips are a mental block where a practiced motion turns unreliable. Dean can still throw alone at night, but live games bring panic and wild pitches.