About This Book
Evvie Drake is hiding something. A year after her husband's death, she's still locked inside their big Maine house — and while everyone assumes it's grief keeping her there, the truth is more complicated and more honest than that. When a burned-out major league pitcher moves into her garage apartment, two people who've each lost something they can't quite name start finding their way back, not through grand gestures, but through the slow, tentative work of actually telling the truth. Holmes writes about secrets and starting over with real warmth and zero sentimentality.
What makes this novel worth your time is how carefully it earns its emotional payoff. Holmes, best known as a pop culture critic, brings a sharp observational eye to small-town Maine and the specific textures of people being careful with each other. The pacing is unhurried without being slow — conversations do the heavy lifting, and the dialogue crackles with the awkward, funny, layered quality of how people actually talk when they're trying not to say too much. It's a quiet book that sneaks up on you.