Linda Holmes Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Linda Holmes wears many hats. She is an American writer, author, radio maker, podcast host, interviewer, Twitter liker, cultural critic, previous lawyer, a capella singer in college for a time, dabbler in photography, and occasionally a baker of bread.

She writes for NPR and works for them as a correspondent. She is the host of the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, a round table format that focuses on topics within the culture and entertainment world. She also edits the Pop Culture Happy Hour blog on NPR.

Linda has collaborated with the majority of the radio shows that they have in one way or another. She has spoken about pop culture topics on Weekend Edition, Morning Edition, and All Things Considered. She has written for a week for Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me. She has even answered music questions on an episode of Ask Me Another and has guest hosted Bullseye, Jesse Thorn’s interview show. Linda also will do live local radio whenever offered the opportunity.

Holmes was working for the Minnesota legislature when she started using her free time to write about television and film for sites that include Television Without Pity, MSNBC, and Vulture.com. She left her job in 2007 in the legal field and decided to relocate to live in New York City for the purposes of dedicating herself to criticism and writing. She was hired a year later to cover topics in pop culture for NPR.

Linda Holmes saw her first novel released in 2019. Evvie Drake Starts Over received a starred review and was picked as a summer book club selection by The Today Show. It is the story of Evvie Drake and her friendship with a former Major League Pitcher.

The author originally attended Oberlin College until 1993, then was inspired to go to law school after taking a constitutional law class. She attended Lewis & Clark Law School in Oregon and graduated in 1997, practicing law until 2007.

Today she has a dog named Brian that was rescued in Spain. She has a side hustle of moderating live events where she interviews people while they are in front of audiences. These have included people such as Ron Howard, B.J. Novak, Lauren Graham, Shonda Rhimes and more.

Linda is a public speaker and she has spoken on panels and at conferences. She has also spoken at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Sixth & I synagogue. She once co-hosted an awards banquet, which has given more more sympathy for those who have agreed to host awards shows on television.

She has written about television, a lot of it in the reality genre, at the site Television Without Pity. She has also written for places such as TV Guide, Vulture, and MSNBC. She still retains her love for arguing, which she attributes to helping her persuade people to vote in the Lois & Clark “Honeymoon in Metropolis” episode into their canon of great television episodes.

Evvie Drake Starts Over is the first novel to come out from Linda Holmes. It was the nominee for a Goodreads Choice Award in the category of Readers’ Favorite Debut Novel in 2019.

Eveleth Drake goes by Evvie. She’s been dealing with so much in the most recent months. It has been almost a year of her living in a small seaside Maine town after her husband passed away in a car accident. The house is large and she cannot help but feel every inch of its emptiness.

She’s been processing her feelings, and she knows that everyone in town thinks that she’s just struck with grief. Even Andy, her best friend thinks so. But she doesn’t go out of her way to give them a different impression because they are right.

Dean Tenney is a former pitcher in the major league in NYC, and he’s also Andy’s best friend from when they were kids. He is dealing with what many athletes call the yips. He isn’t able to throw straight the way that he is used to anymore, and he isn’t able to understand why.

The media storm is increasing and he receives an invitation to stay in Maine. It seems like the ideal opportunity to try and set Dean’s future up to work out better than it is currently. Why not go take a break and get his head and career straight?

Dean moves into an apartment located in the back of the house that Evvie owns, and they agree to something between themselves. Dean is not going to inquire about Evvie’s former husband, and she will not inquire about his baseball career.

They both agree to this rule, but their friendship eventually leads to them getting to know each other better and then something more. Evvie and Dean may have to contend with what they’ve done in the past before moving forward in the present. Will they be able to do it? Read this book to find out!

Flying Solo is the second novel to come out from Linda Holmes. If you enjoy a good contemporary mystery, check this book out and see what happens!

Laurie Sassalyn has just gotten over the pain of her wedding recently getting canceled. As if that were not bad enough, she is on the verge of turning forty years old. So she’s come back to Calcasset, her hometown in Maine, to deal with her great-aunt Dot’s estate.

Dot had been an adventurous spirit, a woman who had lived to the ripe age of ninety. Laurie finds a duck that pops up at the bottom of a chest, and finds a love letter addressed to Dot that references the duck. She’s told it’s valued at nothing– but then it gets stolen.

Clearly the duck means something to someone. Now Laurie has to find out why Dot would have kept this duck and concealed it and who would want to steal it. She’s on an adventure that will take her new places and speaking to new people, all in a bid to understand her great-aunt and come into her own personal version of taking on life on her own terms. Will she be satisfied with how it all turns out? Read this book to find out!