Evvie Drake is sad. Her husband died, and now she’s alone. But that’s not why she’s sad. When he died, she was leaving him. And then he died, and no one knew that she was about to leave her marriage, and her home town of Calcasset, Maine, , and her friends and family, to start over somewhere else. Now everyone in her small Maine town knows that she is sad, but no one understands why.

Dean Tenney is sad also. And angry and frustrated and also needing to start over. Once a phenomenal baseball pitcher for the New York Yankees, a World Series winner, now Tenney’s career seems to be over. After a bad case of the “yips,” he can no longer pitch, and while everyone seems to think his problems are mental, all the therapists in New York City couldn’t help him get his pitch back.

That’s when Andy steps in. As Evvie’s best friend and regular Saturday morning breakfast date (not that kind of date) and Drew’s childhood friend, he decides that they need each other. Evvie needs some extra income, and a tenant in that apartment in her house would help her pay the bills that much easier. And Drew needs somewhere out of sight of the press where he can lie low and figure out what it is that he wants.

So they move in together, with one rule: she doesn’t ask him about baseball, and he doesn’t ask about her husband. As the weeks go by, Drew becomes more comfortable with the town, and Evvie finds herself starting to open up and share her secrets for the first time in years. As their relationship grows, they both learn a lot about honesty, forgiveness, and going after what you really want in life.

Evvie Drake starts over is the first novel of Linda Holmes, probably best known for her smart snark about pop culture on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour. As the longtime host of the radio show, she leads discussions on movies, television, Broadway, music, books, and anything else that captivates us. As a first-time novelist, she writes with the same intelligent sass we listeners have come to know and admire.

This is not your typical romance. It does have plenty of sweet and sexy moments, but it’s so much more. There are also genuine conversations, honest feelings, a little bit of therapy, lots of great jokes, and more than a couple references to Law & Order. The more I read, the more I found myself comparing it to a smart sports comedy like Tin Cup or Bull Durham.

There are a lot of things I loved about this book, from its natural rhythm to the lovely writing style that pulls you along gently to the intelligence underlining the emotional story line. But what I love most is how genuine it feels, like Holmes herself is a close friend and she’s talking to you about a thing that happened to her once. I can’t wait to read her next novel!

Galleys for Evvie Drake Starts Over were provided by Ballantine Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.