Linda Holmes, the host of NPR’s “Pop Culture Happy Hour” podcast, has written a sparkling debut novel, EVVIE DRAKE STARTS OVER, published by Ballantine, set in a sleepy seaside town in Maine, about an unlikely relationship between a young woman who’s lost her husband and a major league baseball pitcher who’s lost his game. Meet recently widowed Eveleth “Evvie” Drake, who rarely leaves her large, painfully empty house nearly a year after her husband’s death in a car crash, and Dean Tenney, a former major league baseball pitcher, who can’t throw straight anymore, and, even worse, he can’t figure out why. Evvie and Dean must reckon with their current realities and their murky 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. Continue reading →