Pictures of You

Pictures of You, by Australian author Emma Grey, is a work of contemporary women’s fiction combining romance and suspense. Grey is the author of six novels, and her first adult novel, The Last Love Note (2023), became an international bestseller. Pictures of You touches on similar themes of loss, resilience, and rekindled love with the story of Evie, who wakes up after the car accident that killed her husband, Oliver, missing memories of the last 13 years of her life. As an appealing stranger named Drew helps present-day Evie put together the pieces of their past, flashbacks to past Evie’s relationships with Oliver and Drew reveal just how far Evie’s life diverged from her youthful dreams. Weaving together themes of Language and Story as Building Blocks of Identity and Reconciliation as a Source of Healing, Pictures of You takes a chilling look at The Insidious Nature of Emotional Abuse but offers the hope that one can correct mistakes and rebuild a life.

This guide is based on the Zibby paperback edition published in the US in 2024.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide contain depictions of emotional abuse, suicidal ideation, and death.

Plot Summary

The story begins with Evie Hudson sitting at the funeral of her husband, Oliver Roche. Oliver died in a car accident a week prior, and Evie, who was with him, woke up unable to remember the last 13 years of her life. In effect, she’s her 16-year-old self again, but her life at 29 is nothing like what she imagined at 16. Her in-laws, Gwendolyn and Anderson Roche, are cold and distant, her husband was movie-star gorgeous, and she can’t get hold of her parents or her best friend, Bree. Feeling overcome, Evie flees the funeral and hops into the car of a man she thinks is her driver. He turns out to be Drew, a photojournalist.

Evie doesn’t remember that she and Drew used to be best friends. She certainly doesn’t know that Drew was in love with her, but she pushed him away and told him never to contact her again. While he wants to help Evie in her vulnerable state, Drew is cautious about getting close enough to let Evie hurt him again. He’s also wary of restoring her memories since her dissociative amnesia appears to be a method of self-protection. Drew drives Evie to Newcastle to find her parents. Evie is stunned when a strange woman answers the door of her childhood home and says the Hudsons moved away after they lost their daughter.

The story flashes back to 16-year-old Evie’s first meeting with Drew at a photography club. Evie has never had a boyfriend but romanticizes the 18th-century men of the period dramas she loves. When she meets Oliver Roche at a party, she’s overwhelmed that someone so popular and good-looking could be interested in her. Drew and Evie become good friends, but while Drew is drawn to Evie, he can see that she’s falling in love with Oliver. Evie is indeed intensely attracted to Oliver, who seems too good to be true, and as a result, she feels self-conscious and anxious around him. In contrast, Evie is completely herself around Drew as they pursue photography projects. She meets Annie, Drew’s mother, who has had a long battle with cancer. She and Drew drive to Jervis Bay one night to photograph the bioluminescence in the water, a rare and striking natural phenomenon. But Oliver, who has always been Drew’s rival, continues to come between them, drawing Evie to him any way he can.

The night Drew is supposed to take Evie to her school formal, he shows his mother a picture he found of Annie with the man Drew suspects is his father. Annie has a panic attack and has to be taken to the hospital, and Drew stands Evie up. Annie confirms that Anderson Roche, Oliver’s father, is Drew’s father as well. Annie was a nurse at the hospital where Anderson worked as an anesthesiologist. Anderson pursued Annie and sexually assaulted her, then abandoned her when she was pregnant. Drew feels he can’t tell Evie what happened, and so they drift apart.

In the present time, Evie is stunned to learn that she and Drew were once close and wonders if this is why she feels like she can trust him. He comes with her to Adelaide, where her parents now live. Evie is heartbroken when her parents at first don’t want to see her. She wonders what she could have done to hurt them. Drew stays at her side, enjoying this chance to have his old friend back. Evie asks if there was ever anything romantic between them, and Drew says there wasn’t; she chose Oliver. But Evie is jealous when she sees Drew hugging a stylish blonde woman who comes to her parents’ house. The woman turns out to be Bree.

Further flashbacks show Evie at 19, traveling in Italy with Oliver. She feels guilty and uncomfortable about their relationship, even when Oliver seems extravagantly in love with her. Oliver flies Bree to Italy to make Evie happy but then becomes jealous and sulky. At 23, at her college graduation, Evie sees Drew again and realizes how unhappy she is. She breaks her engagement with Oliver.

Drew discovers that his mother has passed away and calls Evie, who offers help and emotional support. She draws away, though, when they kiss. She promises Drew she’ll come to his mother’s funeral, but then doesn’t show. Instead, Oliver comes to Evie’s apartment, begging her to take him back.

Cautiously reconnecting with Bree, Drew, and her parents, Evie learns that Oliver had a daughter, Harriet, with a woman named Chloe. Harriet has recovered from leukemia thanks to a bone marrow transplant from Drew. Evie realizes Oliver created the distance between her and her parents and Bree. Trying to understand what she saw in him, Evie watches her wedding video and hears Anderson make a speech praising Oliver. She’s struck by the way he phrases it; the adjectives are out of order. She recalls the same line from an email Annie sent to Drew, which they always assumed was a suicide note. Evie wonders if Anderson tampered with Annie’s medications to cause her death and then wrote an email pretending to be her. Evie sees the email she sent breaking contact with her parents and knows she didn’t write that, either.

In another flashback to 10 days prior, Evie realizes her marriage is dead. She gets an email from Drew asking her permission to use images of her in an exhibit that could win a major award. As Evie looks at the pictures he took of her, once so vibrant and full of life, she realizes she can’t spend another day with Oliver. She asks Oliver to talk, and he drives them along a steep escarpment. Evie tells him she wants a divorce. The next thing she knows, she’s at the bottom of the ravine in a wrecked car with a dead man, and she doesn’t know who he is.

In the present day, Drew wakes Evie to take her to see the bioluminescence in the bay. Finally, Evie’s memories come rushing back. She realizes that Anderson Roche came between her and Drew and that Oliver likely drove their car off the cliff because Evie wanted to leave him. But now Oliver is gone, and Evie is free to choose what she really wants. She and Drew kiss during a beautiful sunrise, and Evie is grateful to have this second chance with the man she’s truly loved all this time.