Evvie Drake Takes Over by Linda Holmes
Book Blurb:
In a small town in Maine, recently widowed Eveleth “Evvie” Drake rarely leaves her house. Everyone in town, including her best friend, Andy, thinks grief keeps her locked inside, and she doesn’t correct them. In New York, Dean Tenney, former major-league pitcher and Andy’s childhood friend, is struggling with a case of the “yips”: he can’t throw straight anymore, and he can’t figure out why. An invitation from Andy to stay in Maine for a few months seems like the perfect chance to hit the reset button.
When Dean 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. But before they can find out what might lie ahead, they’ll have to wrestle a few demons: the bonds they’ve broken, the plans they’ve changed, and the secrets they’ve kept. They’ll need a lot of help, but in life, as in baseball, there’s always a chance–right up until the last out.
My Review: 4.5 stars – Guest Review
Evvie Drake Starts Over is my favorite book of the past several years! After I finished it, I wanted to start it all over again. This book has had a lot of well-deserved “buzz”. Jenna Bush Hager of the Today show chose it for her July book pick. The book was also featured on a segment of Good Morning America as one of Jennifer Weiner’s favorite summer reads. This book is a smart, charming, joyful, realistic, and quietly nuanced love story that the author elevates beyond your typical romantic comedy. The novel is told from the perspective of Evvie, and the storyline unfolds in order of the four seasons. It takes place in the small fishing village of Calcasset, Maine, which adds to the charm of this book.
I absolutely fell in love with the characters in this book. Both Evvie and Dean are complex, flawed, and totally realistic characters. I felt so connected to them and invested in their struggles, relationship, and growth. They are two broken people who help each other heal. I really enjoyed the book’s authenticity and the care the author took with her characters. This book was perfectly paced; it was not an overnight romance. The reader felt their romance developing from the character’s actions, not from any artificially constructed situations. The relationship came from the everyday moments, with natural, witty and humorous dialogue. It was refreshing to read a romantic comedy with adult characters, and with dialogue geared to the adult reader. Every moment in this novel was believable. All of the secondary characters were just as likeable and realistic, particularly Evvie’s best friend Andy. The evolving relationships between Evvie and Andy, and Evvie and her family were also emotional storylines. I could deeply feel Evvie’s angst and Dean’s bottled up emotions as if they were my own.
Honesty is at the core of this story, as it deals with the themes of grief, friendship, and emotional abuse. The story is ultimately uplifting, joyful, and full of hope as the characters navigate their stumbling blocks to happiness, which are primarily themselves. This book would make a fantastic movie. It was pure pleasure from start to finish, and I will be eagerly anticipating this author’s next book. By Guest Fairy Ronna.
Quotes I liked:
…therapy is like a toothbrush. You can’t really put it to use for anybody except yourself.”
“Your head is the house you live in, so you have to do the maintenance.”
“Evvie’s Scandinavian grandmother had claimed that young women dream about the husbands they want, old women dream about the husbands they wanted, and only the luckiest women, for a moment in the middle, dream about the husbands they’ve got.”
“I think every plan I ever had involved everything happening later…. It was like I was waiting for something to start, and I was actually in the middle of it the whole time.”
“It was possible for things to get better when it felt like they couldn’t. It was possible for things that seemed doomed to be revived.”
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