On the one hand, I like Linda Holmes and this got good reviews. On the other hand, it sounded like a slower plot than I am usually attracted to. But it was on sale, I downloaded the preview, I felt like continuing reading it, so there you go.
Evvie is a small town girl who was married to the Big Man On Campus, Dr. Tim Drake. Everyone loved Tim. Tim was charming. Tim was pretty loaded. Tim was a great guy...to everyone but Evvie, who seems to be the only one who ever saw his jerk side. Evvie was literally packing her bags to leave Tim....and then he got in a car accident and died, and Evvie's spent the last year pretending to be a grieving widow while feeling like a monster. She hasn't even told her best friend Andy about this.
Then Andy has a friend, Dean, who is the current world's most famous sports star with a case of the yips. With no career and nothing to do after his forced retirement, Dean just wants to hide out somewhere quiet, and Evvie has a spare side apartment. So they get on, they hang out, they originally agree not to discuss his problem or her dead husband, they hang out some more, they end up discussing his problem/her dead husband, they get attracted, she says she's not ready, he says let me know when you are....* and not too eventually, she is.
- I restrained myself from taking a screenshot of this and sending it to someone, har har.
There's some discussion of his yips problem and whether or not it's overcome-able--Dean has a brief moment of things going well, so they wonder, but he gets kind of sensitive about things and then eventually heads on home. Evvie works out her own stuff, takes some actions, gets some therapy, and then indicates she's ready again. Pretty simple plot. It's a nice read. Not super dramatic, but more of a pleasant hangout read. Almost Hallmarkian in some respects. You're glad for Evvie that she slowly gets on with her life. The author also writes how Evvie's relationship with her best guy friend Andy changes after he gets a girlfriend well.
On the not-as-great side, I wasn't too thrilled with how Evvie and Dean just kinda passively drift off/break up in the third act without even having a conversation beyond "I guess you're gonna move back to New York again," but obviously that gets resolved. I was rather shocked at one point when we found out Dean's interpretation of what happened and I was all, wait, whaaaaat, I don't even think it went down like that! Dean's parents point out to him that well, he's the sort that needs a push, clarifying the issue.
Overall I give it three and a half stars. I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure how memorable it'll be for me in the long run.