"Pictures of You" was such an interesting look at what happens when the person we were and the person we are are vastly disconnected, and explores the paths we take to find our true selves again.
Emma Grey's newest novel offers a unique perspective on coming of age and navigating complex relationships. In it, Evie loses her memory after a car crash, and is faced with a life and lack of relationships that are so very far from what her 16-year-old self dreamt. Evie is forced to examine the events and choices she made that led to her present, unremembered life, and the losses she endured along the way.
The characters are raw and believable, but I wanted more from each person! I imagine that would have made for quite a long novel, but I think it speaks to Emma's writing that as a reader, I would've been game to learn even more about each character and story arc represented.
Fans of Abby Jimenez and Christina Lauren will love "Pictures of You!"

.Absolutely loved it. Couldn’t put it down. Definitely some heavy topics throughout but she was able to do it in such a way that didn’t leave me feeling depressed. I really like her as an author!

I struggled with my rating for this one. For the first 3/4 of the book, I was invested. I wasn't sure where it was going, but I felt for poor Evie, who wakes up with no memory of 13 years of her life. She's 29 but she thinks she is 16 (imagine what a shock it is to realize you don't have teenage metabolism anymore!). Anyway, her husband died in a car crash, but she doesn't remember him at all.

When she looks for her parents in her phone, they aren't there. Neither is her friend Bree. In fact, the only person that appears to be genuinely looking out for her is her Uber driver (nope, turns out it is her friend Drew).

There are a lot of leaps of faith you have to take with this book, and that's fine. Oliver, Evie's husband, is a trash human being, but this was written in a way that those that have dealt with gaslighting and emotionally abusive partners will understand.

However, I didn't love a few things. First, that it seemed to be one thing after another that was being thrown at poor Evie. Second, the way this was written, it was hard to tell which chapters were present and which were past. A simple heading would have made this a lot clearer. Obviously once you start reading the chapter, you know what time line it is, but for the sake of clarity, I would have liked a header. Third, the ending was WAY too rushed. All of this stuff happened and you are slowly getting the backstory and then whoosh, there's the end and the book is done. I kept looking at the percentage on my Kindle, thinking it was wrong, that this needed longer than the 1-2% I had left to wrap it up. But nope, just wrapped up and that's it.

Wow, this was absolutely amazing. I loved it even more than The Last Love Note. It's one of those rare reads that completely consumed me from start to finish. By the time I finished, I swear my heart needed a full day recovery.

It's a tough one to review because much of the story keeps you in the dark. Evie Hudson wakes up after an accident with no memory of her past, only to learn that her husband is dead and her life is far from what she imagined as a teenager. Desperate for answers, she unexpectedly connects with Drew, a photographer she shares a much deeper history with than she realizes.

The chemistry between Evie and Drew was incredibly intense. As fragments of her past (and their shared history) come together through flashbacks, the tension and emotional stakes were off the charts, let me tell you. The angst was definitely at a solid ten, delivering drama and reveals that completely shook me!

The ending was a little abrupt, I will admit, but also welcomed after such an emotional whirlwind. I’m not-so-patiently waiting for others to read it so we can discuss ALL THE THINGS.

Evie wakes up in the hospital not remembering the last 14 years of her life finding not only is she not a high school student but her husband has died in the crash she was in. She has no memory of ever meeting him or any aspect of their relationship and can't figure out why her parents and her best friend are nowhere to be found she doesn't even have their numbers in her phone. What follows is a emotional and uplifting story of second chances and finding what is really important. This was a lovely well written story that was hard to put down, I couldn't wait to see where Evie was headed and what she would find out. I can't wait to read more from Emma Grey in the future. I want to thank NetGalley and Zibby Books for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Evie wakes up in the hospital to the news that she’s been in a car accident and her husband Oliver, is dead. She should be devastated, but Evie does not remember Oliver, in fact her last memory is of being sixteen and at a party with her best friend Bree.

However, twenty-nine year old Evie is no longer in touch with Bree, apparently estranged from her parents, and has given up on her own academic aspirations. Present day Evie is a person she does not recognize.

At her breaking point and desperate to get away after Oliver’s funeral, Evie runs into Drew, an up and coming photographer, who is elusive about his connection to Evie and her past. Drew reluctantly agrees to help Evie piece together her memories, but as they grow closer to the truth and to each other, heartbreaking secrets threaten to break Evie’s heart.

Pictures of You was an angsty, second chance love story that dealt with some pretty heavy topics and kept me guessing until the very end.

Thank you to Zibby books and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book

This was an easy 5 star read for me. The prologue immediately grabbed me and brought me into the story.
Emma Grey stole my heart with 'The Last Love Note' and this release was one of my most anticipated for 2024. It did not disappoint.
Emma Grey pulls the tension tight throughout this novel as she weaves a dual time line story full of questions, memories, and scattered pieces.

After a tragic car accident, Evie has forgotten her entire adult existence including her now deceased husband. As she tries to piece together her past, she finds herself estranged from her parents, no friends in sight, and conflicted feelings about her husband.

Our memories are flashes of moments in time like a photograph. A single second, minute, day captured in glimpses of the span of a lifetime.
Evie is forced to collect these images to write the story of her past and rewrite her future.

I loved the tension, the angst, and the mystery looming throughout this story. It did get a bit extra at the end, but this read was bingeable and thought provoking. I could not put it down. The characters were so well developed and the build up was everything.

Highly recommend.

“Boundaries are something you put around yourself,” Bree says quietly. “When someone else puts them around you, it’s called a prison.”  PICTURES OF YOU (Pub 11.21)  

What to Know:1. I loved Emma Grey's debut, The Last Love Note (read in print&audio) 
2. I already had it on hold at the library but when a friend about it I requested it on NetGalley.
3. I inhaled it in less than 24 hours because of the captivating writing, page turning story and affable characters. 
4. Don't read too much of the synopsis but know that it's a heartbreaking and heartwarming story about second chances, love and the choices we make and the choices that are made for us. 
5. I laughed. I cried. 
6. It was absolutely the right book at the right time and it filled my bucket.
7. Add it to your TBR, holds or preorder.

I really enjoyed Pictures of You by Emma Grey. I've heard it described as a romance - which it is - but what I enjoyed was the more suspenseful nature of the book, as Evie slowly uncovers what has happened to her since high school. The author really made me feel the terror that Evie must have felt waking up with no memory of the last few years, especially when others around you know exactly what has transpired. All of us have life-defining changes, but few of us are given the opportunity to restart things in the way that Evie does. What an interesting premise for a book!

Thanks to Zibby books and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

PICTURES OF YOU by Emma Grey ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ It is extremely rare that I give a romance novel 5 stars, and this book deserves every last one of them! MY HEART! THIS BOOK! It has everything. I think I loved every single character (except Oliver, duh), but oh man, Drew is the perfect man. I think I’m actually in love (that artists statement, IYKYK). This is a romance, but it is complex, keeps you wondering how things are going to unfold, and hooks you immediately from the beginning. It was on my mind the entire 2 days I was reading it, and is still on my mind today. Emma, my children thank you for the extra TV time they got while I was getting in a few extra pages. I recommend moving this to the top of your TBR.

Evie wakes up after being in a car crash where her husband was killed, but her memory is gone! She remembers nothing from the age of 16 on. I think this is best to go into blind, so I’m leaving my summary right there!

Pub. Date: November 12, 2024.

Perfect if you like:
•The BEST characters.
•A romance you can’t put down.
•Back and forth timeline.
•Dual POV.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice: 🌶️
Mood: 🍜🍫🌮

⚠️: explicit language.

It pains me to write this review. I loved The Last Love Note and Emma Grey is the most fabulous, fun, positive author. She’s the best. Unfortunately, I stopped the book at 50 percent because it was too ya for my taste. The book starts out strong — it’s about a woman who wakes up after an accident and has amnesia and can only remember her life as a 16 year old girl. Apparently, she is married to a rich big deal, but she can’t remember everything. She bolts from the funeral and ends up in a car with a driver who happens to be her bff from when she was 16. But she can’t remember that; only he knows. Then there is a dual timeline of her life in high school vs. her life now. Maybe because it is telling a high school story, but the book just read very young adult to me and the coincidences were a bit much. It didn’t work for me, but maybe it will work for you.

Pictures of You
By: Emma Grey
Pub date: November 12, 2024
Publisher: Zibby Books

Evie Hudson wakes up in the hospital and has a kind of amnesia where she only remembers being a teenager. Now she is an adult. She finds out she was in a crash with her husband, Oliver and she does not remember being married or their life, because she lost so many years of her memory.
They say a brain injury can protect you from something you do not want to remember.
As her memory starts to come back, shocking details that lead up to the crash are revealed.
This novel is a little over 400 pages but goes by fast because you are so involved in Evie’s story and want her to get better.

Pictures of You is a good book that I wish was great because Emma Grey has such great potential in character, story and themes that I wish the book was better.

Oh goodness, this book. So beautifully written and heartbreaking and so, so sweet. I love Evie and I desperately want to know what happens next now that she has found her HEA, but this just really resonated on several levels and Drew is just such a lovely, strong character who balances Evie perfectly. Stunning and sad and lovely.

3.5 stars.

I was really taken by this book and couldn’t put it down at first. I’m really sorry to report that the ending was really abrupt for me. The build-up was so well-written that the ending just felt like a brick wall.

Still, it was quite an enjoyable read, and I'm so glad I read it. I think most are going to really love this one.

I have mixed feelings on "Pictures of You". Thinking it's more a 3.5* rating,

First the positives- it kept my attention. I thought I had figured some key items out early on only to be surprised I hadn't. I love when books do that. I also liked the concept- an amnesiac goes back to time where things were safe, not remembering everything that happened since. It follows the genre of wondering "What if I took that road? How would my life look?"

My negatives - for starters at times it felt a bit disjointed. There were several instances in the book where Grey introduced an item only to not follow up. Maybe she had originally planned additional story lines, then realized the book was going long and cut? Which leads me to the length and in my opinion, the abrupt ending. The. book is over 400 pages, it felt like Grey hurried the end. I have questions! Maybe there will be a sequel?

Emma Grey has turned out an enthralling mystery/romance with her Pictures of You.

This novel will grab you and immerse you in Evie's story. It is full of relationships and family drama with so many twists that make it oh so binge-ful.

Evie (now known to all as Evelyn) awakens in the hospital with some scrapes and bruises from a car accident and a severe case of amnesia. In Evie's mind, however, she is not 29 year old Evelyn, but 16 year old Evie. Upon awakening, not only is she told that she is 29, but perhaps more shocking, she is told that her husband, Oliver, did not survive the crash. Wait...she's only sixteen in her mind, and she never wanted to get married. She had her teenage mind set to be an independent woman. She barely remembers meeting Oliver briefly as he came to an after school photography club meeting when they were both in high school.

Enter Evie's best friend from the photography club, Drew. With Drew's help. Evie is able to reconnect with her parents and her best friend, Bree. What then ensues is Evie finding out a whole sordid saga of alienation, narcissism, gas lighting, and mental abuse....all getting her to where she is now.

The novel is presented to us in dual perspectives, using both the voices of Evie and Drew. The twists along the way are delectable to the plot.

Emma Grey's new one comes out Nov. 12. If you are a fan of family drama with some romance and mystery thrown in for good measure, put this one on your list. Thank you, NetGalley and Zibby Books, for this compelling ARC.

So thankful to have received an advanced reader copy of this book. Loved everything about it. This book reminds you that some friendships you make can and will last a lifetime regardless of what events take place.

Emma Grey has some serious range.

I really enjoyed The Last Love Note and was really intrigued by the premise of this one. I love an alternating time line, dual POVs and a love triangle done exceptionally well.

This book had its fair moments of conveniences but it was so bingeable and enthralling I didn’t care and stay up late turning pages needing to know what was going to happen to Evie and Drew.

This was romance mixed with mystery and some really fun contemporary themes, brava Emma you have a sure hit here.

Evie wakes up in the hospital, attached to tubes and thoroughly bruised and bandaged. She only knows three things for sure-she is sixteen, she must have really gotten drunk at the party (what party?) last night to land in the hospital, and her mum and best friend Bree aren't at the bedside. But she soon finds out that she is actually 29 and married to the school golden boy/love of her life, the car that they were in fell over a cliff and her husband Oliver died, and she had no contacts in her phone for her mum or her friend. Evie remembers nothing of the last 13 years of her life and is diagnosed with temporary amnesia. She finds out that Oliver and his parents were rich society dwellers, his funeral  will be lavish and exclusive, and decides to escape before the reception. The nurses were nice enough to catch her up on the latest technology so she phones an Uber, dashes through the paparazzi outside the church, and gets into one of the cars. Turns out that he isn't the Uber driver after all, but she confides her plight to him and he starts helping her...just as he has done for the love of her for the last thirteen years. But Drew must let her remember things on her own so she won't die of despair at the way her life really turned out. What a set-up, right?
Grey, the author of several YA novels, paints a beautiful picture of her native Australia that might be considered another character in the book. As Evie and Drew alternate telling their stories in flashbacks, we learn why she felt sorry for dark, brooding Drew, whose mum was battling cancer. Through a school photography project they became friends, but before Drew could tell Evie his true feelings, she was swept off her feet by Oliver, the girl magnet. For some reason, she had captured his attention and he began to pursue her (not that she needed much pursuit.)  Readers also follow Drew and Evie in the present where Drew helps Evie learn why neither her parents or her friend Bree want any contact with her.
This is a wow of a book-I read it in two days. Feed the dog, do the wash, silence your phone, because when you start you'll have to see it through to the end. I envy you!