"Evvie Drake Starts Over" by Linda Holmes

I'd had a couple of childless friends recommend "Flying Solo" by Linda Holmes to me as a good CNBC-friendly read.  But I couldn't remember which Holmes book they'd told me about, offhand, and picked up her debut novel, "Evvie Drake Starts Over" (which was a "Read With Jenna" book club selection). Oh well!    

Evvie Drake has been holed up in her big house in a small town in Maine, ever since her husband died in a car accident.  Everyone assumes she's grieving. (It's complicated...)  

Then her best friend Andy asks if she'd consider renting the small apartment attached to her house to an old friend of his who's also laying low: Dean Tenney, a Major League baseball pitcher (New York Yankees!)  who's got a bad case of "the yips," has lost his mojo and is being hounded by the press about it.  

Would you be surprised to learn these two gradually move from a landlord-tenant relationship to friendship to something more??  (Me either...)   

Author Roxane Gay called this a "Hallmark movie" in her Goodreads review. She's not wrong. It definitely falls into the "rom-com" category -- and it's utterly predictable.  (There's even a cute puppy, near the end.)  The romance is the slow burn variety -- maybe almost a little too slow. On balance, it's a pleasant read, and it says some wise things about grief, near the end.  I will admit I developed a bit of a crush on Dean.  ;)  And  I would love to see/own Evvie's cottage by the water! 

I will likely look at "Flying Solo" as a future read.

3 stars on Goodreads & StoryGraph.   

ALI/CNBC notes (mild spoiler alerts):  Evvie does not have children, but she does dote on Andy's two young daughters. 

I got a shock of recognition in Chapter 31:  Dean says some things about his career that, while not about fertility treatments, definitely gave me a feeling of deja vu. (If/when you read the book, you'll see what I mean...!)  Points to the author for that!  

This was Book #14 read to date in 2026 (and Book #4 finished in June), bringing me to 35% of  my 2026 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 40 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 5 books behind pace to meet my goal.  :(  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2026 tagged as "2026 books." 

Odds & ends

• Anyone else feeling overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of prom, graduation and last day of school photos on social media this week??  (In Canada/North America, anyway -- I know different countries have different school year calendars!) It's been going on in dribs & drabs over the past month or so, as the school year wound down, and I've been doing OK so far -- but today/tomorrow is the last day of school hereabouts, plus lots of grads & proms this week, and it's like I've reached the saturation point…! 

• Mel is marking a big milestone over at Stirrup Queens! Go over and congratulate (and thank) her!  

• Sue Fagalde Lick at "Can I Do it Alone?" recently landed in the hospital :(  Go wish her well and read some of her posts from the past month about what happened and what childless seniors living alone can do to better cope with these crises. 

• On a related note:  Jody Day was interviewed about her Alterkin project, aging as a childless person, and aging generally, as part of an article on aging in The Atlantic! Here's a gift link for "Americans Are in Denial About Elder Care." (Not just Americans...) 

• Jody Day also flagged this thought-provoking article from "The Shift by Sam Baker" -- a guest post from Kim Willis:  "Stop calling me 'child-free'." 
• I wrote a similarly themed post in the early days of this blog, almost 19 (!) years ago (and have returned to the subject several times since then):  "Am I childLESS or childFREE?"

• Nora McInerny reminds all of us who take photos to "Get in the picture." (That includes those of us without kids -- a subject I have written about in the past -- here, for example.)  

I’m only asking you to consider that with the exception of the worst people in the world, life is tragically short. Someday, you will look upon this version of yourself and see yourself through new eyes. Eyes that might need bifocals or cataract surgery, but eyes that still work well enough to see that you, with that rogue chin hair or the jeans that Gen Z TikTokkers are trying to bully you out of wearing are more beautiful than you know.

Someday you will long for the version of you that exists today, however flawed you believe her to be. Give future you something to marvel over, grab your Cybershot, and get in the picture.

• “Everything happens for a reason.” Or does it?  Lexi Weber Johnson at "Not Expecting" explains why this is not a helpful thing to say to someone who is grieving. 

Underneath the “everything happens for a reason” line is something more universal: a discomfort with uncertainty. We want life to make sense. We want outcomes to add up. We want suffering to belong to a larger story. Because the reality that some things simply happen, full stop, is harder to bear.

• Jennie Agg at Life, Almost says "I can't keep up." (She is singing my song...!)
• Jennie also has thoughts on "Trimester Zero" (!). ("Let's not do this.") 
  

• I haven't quite lost all my elders yet -- I still have my dad, and most of my dad's siblings, and my maternal uncle's wife, and several of my mother's cousins (and am thankful for every day I still have them all in my life). But I found myself nodding vigorously as I read Cyndie Spiegel's post from "Life, Created" ("v. 70 One Day You Realize That There's No One Left to Ask"). 
• I have been feeling this keenly since my mom's death in January, and the task of sorting through several generations' worth of possessions. More and more, I feel my past slipping through my fingers and receding into the distance. And I'm mourning that loss alongside the loss of my mom.  

"In Memoriam" by Alice Winn (re-read)

I haven't been able to stop thinking about "In Memoriam" -- the debut novel by Alice Winn, who was not yet 30 when she wrote it (!) --  and wanting to talk about it with other readers, since I first read it almost three (!) years ago. (Dh also read it, at my behest, and agreed with me that it was a wonderful book.)  It was probably my favourite book that I read that year and, three years after its release, it's still rated very highly (average 4.49 stars) on Goodreads.

So I'm happy to be sharing it with the other members of my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club. as our selection for August  (Here's hoping they agree too!)  

"In Memoriam" is the story of two teenaged boys, Sidney Ellwood and Henry Gaunt, and what happens to them and their friends from Preshute (a traditional upper-class English boarding school) when the First World War breaks out in 1914.  The two harbour secret, unrequited passions for each other, at a time and place when same-sex "crushes" were tolerated in the school environment, but homosexuality was a crime in broader society. 

Ellwood is Jewish, handsome and romantic, a budding poet who quotes Tennyson, Shakespeare and Keats at every opportunity. Gaunt is more repressed and introverted, and tormented by his feelings for Ellwood.  Pressured by his family  -- originally from Germany -- to demonstrate their patriotism by enlisting, and confronted by a young woman who hands him a white feather (a symbol of cowardice, presented to young men not in uniform), Gaunt signs up -- followed by Ellwood, and many of their other young classmates.  

None of them has any idea of what they're about to endure. 

This is (still) not an easy book to read.  The carnage of the Great War is graphically described, and horrifying to read about. The casualty lists and "In Memoriams" in the school newspaper, the Preshutian, are still hard to read... such a horrible waste of young life. The toll the war takes on the survivors (those who fought, and those at home) is also hard to read about. 

But it's still incredibly powerful and moving book, on second reading. (Kleenex was still needed.) 

This time around, I found myself taking greater note of the character of Maud, Gaunt's younger sister, a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) hospital volunteer, who is (also!) in love with Ellwood. Although she only plays a supporting role here, she was one reason why I thought this book might be of interest to the group. I was reminded of the book "Singled Out" by Virginia Nicholson (which Winn mentions in the end notes) -- reviewed here, also worth a read.  

I also noticed more clearly this time around how the author used various representative characters to explore some very 21st century themes (outside of Gaunt & Ellwood's forbidden love):  Gaunt's Indian friend Gideon Devi (racism), Ellwood (anti-Semitism), Hayes (class prejudices -- on both sides of the divide), Maud (feminism). Perhaps it was a little obvious, and a little unrealistic that  people within the book would be so understanding/accepting of these things in the early 20th century? (Or maybe they were, and we just haven't heard as much about it?)

(I also noticed the author giving a shoutout to Yael van der Wouden, among other writers who inspired and supported her. Van der Wouden is the author of the more recent novel "The Safekeep" -- reviewed here -- which is also about the trauma of war and its aftermath, and forbidden love.) 

My original review (posted here) gave this book 4.5 stars on StoryGraph, rounded up to 5 on Goodreads, "because I really did think it was a wonderful book."  That rating still stands.    

This was Book #13 read to date in 2026 (and Book #3 finished in June), bringing me to 33% of  my 2026 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 40 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 5 books behind pace to meet my goal.  :(  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2026 tagged as "2026 books." 

"The Mitford Affair" by Marie Benedict

My latest read is "The Mitford Affair" by Marie Benedict, a book recommended by my book club co-host (and a potential future read with the group). I already knew a bit about the six Mitford sisters -- offspring of a well-connected British family, who came to prominence as young women in pre-World War II -- and I've long wanted to read more about them. 

"The Mitford Affair" focuses on the family's three eldest daughters in alternating, short chapters:  Nancy, the oldest, who narrates her sections in the first person; Diana, the family's golden girl, who leaves her Guinness heir husband for the (married!) British fascist leader, Oswald Mosley; and Unity, a misfit whose zealous devotion to fascism and the Nazi Party takes her to Germany, where she develops a relationship with the Fuhrer himself, Adolf Hitler. (Next-youngest sister Jessica, known as Decca, plays a lesser role in the story -- she's a dedicated Communist, in contrast to Diana & Unity's fascism -- while younger sisters Pamela and Deborah and brother Tom are barely seen or heard from.)  

The book follows the family, and the three oldest sisters in particular, from 1932 to 1941, and explores the growing tensions between Diana and Unity's increasing devotion to the Nazi cause and Nancy's increasing unease with it -- which comes to a climax when the war begins.  

This was the first book I've read by Marie Benedict, who has written other historical novels focused on interesting women, including actress/scientist Hedy Lamarr, physicist Mitza Maric Einstein, scientist Rosalind Franklin, author Agatha Christie, and Lady Clementine Churchill (a cousin of the Mitfords who also pops up in "The Mitford Affair," along with her husband Winston -- also a cousin to the family). It was a little on the long side, and could probably have been a bit shorter. The constant back and forth between the different characters' stories and viewpoints felt a bit choppy at times, and I was slightly annoyed at first by all the nicknames the sisters have for each other and the people around them, until I finally got them all straight....! 

That said, despite its length and the shifting viewpoints, this was, overall, a fast, easy and interesting read that kept me turning the pages, especially near the end, and especially once the war began in 1939. I finished it in just three days.  (Dare I say, Nancy's struggles to understand her sisters' obsession with a charismatic but volatile leader and his distasteful political philosophy resonated with this modern-day reader...!)  And now, having read this fictional account of the Mitfords' lives, I'm curious to read something on the non-fiction side about them to learn more :) -- and perhaps also read a novel or two by Nancy Mitford, some of which are mentioned in the book.   

I was initially thinking 3.5 stars on StoryGraph and debating whether to round up or down on Goodreads -- but the last 20% or so of the book prompted me to assign 4 stars even.   

ALI/CNBC note: There's a subplot related to Nancy's efforts -- ultimately unsuccessful -- to have children. CNBC readers will relate to Nancy's encounters with her more fertile, pregnant sisters.     

This was Book #12 read to date in 2026 (and Book #2 finished in June), bringing me to 30% of  my 2026 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 40 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 5 books behind pace to meet my goal.  :(  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2026 tagged as "2026 books." 

Recent odds & ends

• World Childless Week (WCW) has announced the daily topics for WCW 2026 (Sept. 14th to 20th).  Learn more about WCW 2026 and how you can get involved here.   
• In a blog post for the World Childless Week website, Gayle Letherby offers "Some Reflections on Being ‘Other'." 
• Lana Manikowski at "Infertile and Childless: So Now What?" poses an important question: "When IVF Fails Again and Again: How Do You Know When Enough Is Enough?" 
• Lexi Weber at "Not Expecting" shares five observations about infertility (including that "Infertility makes you weird at brunch").  
• PJ is "In Transition" -- and yes, PJ, this all definitely sounds familiar!!  (Read her post and a few of my latest, and you'll understand why...!)  
• Every now & then, a long-dormant blog on my blogroll will pop to the top of the list with a new post. "Tips on Triplets" re-emerged recently with a post ("Trauma Chameleon") looking at the lingering effects of loss and trauma, 15 years later. 
• Y'all know I love the Flavia de Luce novels by Canadian author Alan Bradley. Sadly, I learned through one of my book clubs (where we read the first Flavia book together which was happily very well received!) that Bradley died on May 19th at age 87. How he managed to channel an 11-year-old girl (from 1950s UK -- when he'd never set foot there before he wrote the first book!) so incredibly well will remain a mystery...!  
• Very happily, he left one final Flavia novel for us:  "Numb Were the Beadsman's Fingers," available on Nov. 3rd.  :)  Also, "Flavia" the movie (based on the first Flavia book, "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie") will be released in North America on Dec. 4th! (It's been out in the UK since early April.)  

"The Hacienda" by Isabel Canas

"The Hacienda," the first novel by Isabel Canas, is the July selection for my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club.

Beatriz's father was killed during the Mexican War of Independence (1810-21), and she and her mother had to flee their home as it was being torched.  Dependent on the begrudging charity of relatives since then, Beatriz marries Rodolfo, whose family's hacienda, San Isidro, offers the kind of security she craves. 

But Rodolfo is away for long stretches of time -- and San Isidro is not the haven Beatriz imagined.  Someone -- or something -- does not want her there. Desperate for help, she turns to a sympathetic young priest -- who is not quite what he seems either...   

A few Goodreads reviews described this one as " "Rebecca" meets Mexican Gothic."  I've never read any "Mexican Gothic," and horror/supernatural themes are generally not my kind of reading fare.  I will admit I found some of the "haunted house" elements a bit over the top, and the "forbidden romance" trope pretty predictable. 

On the plus side, I did find the historical/cultural context interesting. There's not a very large Latino presence in Canada (although it's been growing in recent years, certainly in the Toronto area), and I don't know as much about the culture as I would if I grew up in, say, Texas or California. (I suspect that what I do know has been absorbed mostly from Hollywood...!)  And despite my reservations about the plot, I did keep turning the pages...!  

If you like this sort of book, and enjoy a good scare, you will probably enjoy this one (its current average rating on Goodreads is a solid 3.84 stars out of 5, and 3.91 on StoryGraph).  As I said, however, not really my thing.   

3 stars. 

Content warning:  Abortion subplot involving a minor character. 

This was Book #11 read to date in 2026 (and Book #1 finished in June), bringing me to 28% of  my 2026 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 40 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 6 books behind pace to meet my goal.  :(  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2026 tagged as "2026 books." 

The little wooden chest

Right after I told my mother over the phone, that day in March 1998, that I was pregnant,  she started shopping. It wasn't long afterward that she excitedly told me about the bargain she'd found and snapped up from an an end-of-season clearance rack -- an adorable little furry white bunting bag. She mentioned other things she'd found too -- a cute little outfit, a Beatrix Potter/Peter Rabbit cup, a book.  She mentioned gifts from friends and neighbours, including handknit or crocheted items. 

After we lost Katie, I remember her wiping away tears at my kitchen table one day and whispering, "Someday I'll show you all the little things I bought."  

One of the next times we visited there, there was a new addition to the bedroom where we usually slept:  a small wooden chest with a nature scene painted on top that my dad had won in a charity raffle.

I knew immediately what was inside. 

Over the years, I did open the lid and take a peek a couple of times, but didn't have the heart to start pulling things out or rummaging through them.  

Almost 28 years passed -- and we never did go through the contents of that little chest together. 

And then my mom died in January.  

My sister asked me if we were going to take the little chest home with us, and offered to keep it for us if we wanted it.  I knew getting it home would be a problem -- obviously, it wouldn't fit into a suitcase! -- and where would we put it here?  I told her I would go through the chest myself and decide what to do with it and its contents.  

I did it one day when we were there last month, during the week she was at work in the city and I was by myself upstairs in the house, going through boxes and boxes of stuff. It was now sitting in the adjacent empty bedroom next door, as the usual room was now empty of furniture and being used as our work/sorting area.  I pulled the chest into the middle of the room, sat down on the floor, took a deep breath, and started taking things out and taking photos of each item.  

Dh found me sitting there a while later, tears rolling down my face. 

The chest was not as full as I'd remembered. I suspect Mom had quietly given a few of the items away over the years. (I knew that a little sweater and cap set, knit by a kind neighbour, now dead, went to Little Princess #3, as I wrote here at the time, almost three years ago now. Her mom, Parents Neighbours' Daughter, sent me a photo of her wearing it.)  

The bunting bag was there, a little jacket in bright primary colours, a (very few) little outfits. The Peter Rabbit mug.  (I thought there had once been a matching bowl that went with it, but it was not there.)  A book.  A program from the All Saints Day service at our church, where Katie's name was among the loved ones who had died during the year (dh & I attended, and I sent a program to Mom). Mother's and Father's Day cards sent during my pregnancy, with excited notes from me inside and, in one, a photocopy of my ultrasound scan photo.  (I found a couple of similar cards that my grandmother had saved, which I'd completely forgotten about, and broke my heart to read.)  An invitation to the baby shower that was never held, from the hostess (dh's Cousin/Neighbour's Wife, who enclosed a warm personal note expressing how excited she and her two little girls were about the prospect of having a baby in the family nearby). 

Separately, we also found a still-wrapped package in a drawer (that I think had once been in the chest?) from one of Mom's friends, wrapped in baby-appropriate paper with a small card "For Baby from L."  I brought it home with me too. I still haven't opened it. (It feels like a baby book.)   

I kept the wrapped package, one of the little outfits, the book, the Peter Rabbit mug (which now sits in my china cabinet), and the cards, and brought them home with me in my suitcase.  I bagged the rest of the clothes and told my sister she could donate the bag somewhere, as well the now-empty chest.  

Here are photos of some of the things I found:  

The little wooden chest. (It looks huge here, but it wasn't.) 

The painted top. 

With the lid open. 

A colourful little springtime jacket. 

The bunting bag/snowsuit. :( 

The tag inside read, "Little Miracles."   :(  

Some lovely friend or neighbour knit this beautiful little hat/cowl. 

The Peter Rabbit mug. 

This is the outfit that I kept. 

Outfit #2. 

Outfit/ensemble #3. 

A book. 

In two weeks of letting a lot of treasured things go, this was one of the very hardest.