Photo from Netgalley
Description from NetGalley: 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.
I’m new to Linda Holmes, but after this I’m all in.
This releases in June and I'm calling it now: it's the book of the summer! This is a story about the life choices we make and the ones we don't that change the course anyway. It deals with some tough issues in real-life, human ways. Funny, warm, charming, sad, unusual in how relatable it feels. And did I mention funny? I don't usually laugh out loud at books, but I did several times here. There is so much great dialogue and I couldn't get enough of the witty banter. The characters feel real—at time frustratingly so. One of those books you just want to live in and are sad when it ends. Made me a little homesick for New England, too. Evvie, as we'd say back home, you're a real charmah.
Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Ballantine for the ARC! I was delighted to receive it and I can’t wait until this comes out. There has been so much buzz and I’ve gotten so many replies on social media from friends that they can’t wait to read it.