Evvie Drake Starts Over: A Read with Jenna Pick: A Novel

In a small town in Maine, recently widowed 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. Meanwhile, in New York City, Dean Tenney, former major-league pitcher and Andy’s childhood 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. But before they can find out what might lie ahead, they’ll have to wrestle with a host of complicated truths, about themselves, their pasts, and the people they thought they knew before they can rewrite their stories. With sharp, warm humor and a profound understanding of how life and love work, screenwriter and NPR pop culture correspondent Linda Holmes creates a gorgeous debut novel about the unlikely relationship between a young woman who’s lost her husband and a major-league pitcher who’s lost his game.