Review by Stacey O’Carroll
Author: Emma Grey
Publisher: Penguin Random House
RRP: $34.99
Release Date: 12 November 2024
“All the scaffolding in my life has crumbled and I’m stranded on a mile-high ledge.”
What if you woke up in a hospital bed and couldn’t remember any of your adult life? Scared and confused, you think you’re still a teenager and must piece together your life since high school. What if you got a second chance with the person you never forgot? This is what happens to Evie in Emma Grey’s new novel Pictures of You.
“And by ‘everything,’ I mean the unbelievable set of facts that I appear to be an adult woman with prescription lenses, fine lines on my face, additional kilos on my frame, and a dead husband I never wanted.”
Evelyn, or Evie as she was nicknamed as a teen, wakes up in hospital after a car crash that killed her husband, Oliver. She thinks she’s still sixteen and has no memory of the years after or being twenty-nine. When Evie is a teenager, she meets two boys in her photography class, Oliver and Drew. Oliver sweeps teenage Evie off her feet. In her amnesiac state, Evie realises they were married. When Evie bumps into Drew at Oliver’s funeral, the snapshots of her life begin to form her real and heartbreaking story.
“It’s as if I am dead too. Or trapped in some fever-induced nightmare from which I’m desperate to wake up and can’t.”
Grey, whose previous novel, The Last Love Note, was inspired by the tragic and sudden passing of her husband, captures readers’s hearts again with a story balancing poignant and timely topics with an enduring love story. In Pictures of You, Evie, Drew and Oliver go through a colour wheel of emotions written with such intricate detail the characters are framed beyond the expected romantic tropes. Because Evie, despite her flaws, is so relatable with her Pride & Prejudice and movie romance obsession, it’s hard not to love her.
“Romantic evidence is blaring in polished, cinematic glory.”
It is clear to the reader, well those familiar with Pride & Prejudice, that Austen has inspired aspects of the romance. There is misunderstanding and rather Wickham-like behaviour from one of the love interests. The references to Jane Austen, rom-coms and songs that anyone over thirty will remember add a lovely youthful nostalgia to Pictures of You. Early in the novel, there are hints at possible inspiration from John Hughes’s film Pretty in Pink, but instead of music, we have Austen. Without giving the plot away, the romantic tension is gripping, and the chemistry between Drew and Evie is magic. Or perhaps shimmering like the bioluminesence Evie and Drew seek out.
“As the words stampeded ferociously out of my mouth, I feel myself slipping further from my best friend and my parents. And ever closer to Oliver.”
Grey’s Pictures of You is reminiscent of JoJo Moyes’s Me Before You, with its deeper message and shimmering love story. Pictures of You demonstrates Grey’s talent for putting complex emotions into words and providing an unexpected twist that will leave readers audibly gasping and heartbroken. Be warned, once you start reading Evie’s story, you will not want to put the book down. Grey’s sparkling prose, an engrossing story and an urgent message, Pictures of You is hard not to spoil. So read Pictures of You as soon as you can get yourself a copy and let her capture your heart.