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Evvie Drake Starts Over

A Novel

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Evvie Drake Starts Over

Written by: Linda Holmes
Narrated by: Julia Whelan, Linda Holmes
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About this listen

 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today • “Everything a romantic comedy should be: witty, relatable, and a little complicated.”—People

A heartfelt debut about the unlikely relationship between a young woman who’s lost her husband and a major league pitcher who’s lost his game.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR

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.

A joyful, hilarious, and hope-filled debut, Evvie Drake Starts Over will have you cheering for the two most unlikely comebacks of the year—and will leave you wanting more from Linda Holmes.

Praise for Evvie Drake Starts Over

“A quirky, sweet, and splendid story of a woman coming into her own.”—Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & The Six

“Effortlessly enjoyable . . . [a] pitch-perfect . . . adult love story that is as romantic as it is real.”–USA Today

“Charming, hopeful, and gently romantic . . . Evvie Drake is great company.”—Rainbow Rowell, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eleanor & Park Contemporary Contemporary Romance Fiction Genre Fiction Literature & Fiction Romance Women's Fiction Friendship Sports Marriage Maine Feel-Good Funny Heartfelt Witty

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Enjoyed the book. lovely characters, each broken in their own way. Was worth my time. I am not ready to let go of the characters and move onto a new book. Enjoyed their interactions with each other.

Lovely Characters

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Thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author has such a wonderful command of language and I laughed out loud so many times throughout the story. Funny aside, the novel is both poignant and thought provoking. It hit me right in "the feels." (P.S. Stellar narration by Julia Whelan.)

Such Clever Writing

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The only good thing about this book is the narrator (she’s the same woman who read “beach read”) if you want to hear entirely too much baseball mentions and other boring stuff, to only have a few good parts then you won’t mind lol . But I feel this book could have been so much better! If there was more romance between Dean and Evvie or even a part where she was romantic with the best friend Andy and she had to choose...which I was hoping for. For a rom com it fell flat. I finished the book out of pure boredom, there’s better parts FARRRR in like near the end but the boring parts out way the good parts. I wouldn’t recommend.

Mediocre at best, narrator was what kept me listening

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Loved this book soo cute! I ate it up! will live in my head rent free!

Soo cute

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This was a good summer read. I thought Linda did a great job of drawing the characters and weaving the story. Didn't love the narration -- using a growl for the main male character's voice was rather hokey but overall, it did not distract too greatly from the plot. Usually I find these kind of 'broken people get fixed' books to be trite but this one was sweet without being cloying. Linda Holmes.....more please! :)

Good summer read

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