Pictures of You

June 1, 2024

Grey follows her buzzy and bestselling debut The Last Love Note with a second-chance love story about Evie, who wakes up in a hospital after surviving a crash that killed her husband. Now she cannot remember him and thinks she is in high school. How to re-find a lost life? With a 100K-copy first printing. Prepub Alert.

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September 3, 2024
Emma Grey’s second adult romance, Pictures of You, follows her successful debut, The Last Love Note, and shares similar themes of love, grief and hope, while weaving in mystery and suspense. Evie Hudson wakes up with retrograde amnesia after an accident that has killed her husband, Oliver. She believes she is still 16 years old, trapped in the body of a 30-year-old woman, whose isolated and manicured life she does not recognise. As Evie tries to piece together the missing years, the story alternates between her perspective and that of her high school best friend Drew, skilfully juggling the present-day amnesia timeline and the events of the past, in which Evie is 16. Grey is brilliant in her exploration of the weight of loss and the rush of first love, using vivid details to create a palpable sense of vulnerability. However, the rapid succession of twists and turns towards the end disoriented me, and I felt the conclusion was rushed, closing the story without offering conclusions to questions introduced too late in the novel. Additionally, the exploration of Drew’s romantic feelings for Evie in the present, when she is mentally 16, felt uncomfortable. Grey shines in her realistic portrayal of abuse, heartbreak, hope and warmth, and fans of her previous novel will again enjoy her emotionally dextrous prose in Pictures of You, as will readers of Colleen Hoover.

Starred review from September 15, 2024
Grey delivers an intriguing romance in her latest (after The Last Love Note, 2023). Evie wakes up in a hospital room and believes herself to be a teenager instead of the 29-year-old married woman she actually is. While she wonders where her parents and best friend Bree are, she learns that she is married to a gorgeous man named Oliver, who died in a car crash that she somehow survived. The doctor explains that she is suffering from traumatic memory loss, but without knowing how to reach her family, she is utterly lost. She manages to escape Oliver's funeral and her intense in-laws and unknowingly gets into the car of her old friend, photographer Drew. Drew and Evie were inseparable until she met Oliver, but Drew always wanted more. Drew commits to helping Evie find her family, while she tries to remember who she is. Once Drew reunites Evie with her parents and Bree, she begins to uncover the truth about her relationship with Oliver. Grey gives readers insight into Evie's relationships with Oliver and Drew through alternating perspectives that switch between past and present times. Readers who enjoy Emily Giffin will fly through this superb novel.

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