When One Little Mistake by Emma Curtis was published I was lucky enough to interview Emma here all about it.  Today I’m thrilled to share the second of my holiday reads and to review When I Find You, Emma’s latest book. My grateful thanks both to the author and to Hannah Bright at Penguin Random House for sending me a copy in return for an honest review.

Published by Black Swan, an imprint of Penguin Random House, When I Find You is available for purchase through these links.

When I Find You

What do you do when someone takes advantage of your greatest weakness?

When Laura wakes up after her office Christmas party and sees a man’s shirt on the floor, she is horrified. But this is no ordinary one-night-stand regret.

Laura suffers from severe face-blindness, a condition that means she is completely unable to identify and remember faces. So the man she spent all night dancing with and kissing – the man she thought she’d brought home – was ‘Pink Shirt’.

But the shirt on her floor is blue.

And now Laura must go to work every day, and face the man who took advantage of her condition. The man she has no way of recognising.

She doesn’t know who he is . . . but when she finds him she’ll make him pay.

My Review of When I Find You

Suffering from face blindness, prosopagnosia, Laura finds it difficult to navigate life.

What an interesting and absorbing read When I Find You is. I confess it took me a while to rid myself of the simple question of why Laura didn’t simply tell everyone about her condition so that she didn’t need to struggle to identify them so much. Once I had finished reading this complex, well researched and totally twisty narrative, I understood perfectly. What a devastating condition! I loved the way Emma Curtis educated me as well as entertained me.

But not only did When I Find You educate and entertain me, it perplexed me and made me think too. I had to change my mind about the perpetrator of the crime several times over, and more importantly I think, I had to consider what constitutes consensual sexual intercourse and how far Laura could be said to be to blame for what happens to her. I’ve finished When I Find You feeling rather unsettled and that is no bad thing at all.

I really enjoyed the writer’s style as Emma Curtis balances Laura, Rebecca and David so perfectly. None is perfect and the reader is made to see how easy it is to commit an untruth at best and a serious crime at worst as our lives are so often at the mercy of others. I thoroughly enjoyed the insight into corporate and family life too as Emma Curtis touches on love and loyalty, secrets and lies, honesty and the concept of belonging and feeling alienated regardless of the effect of Laura’s condition. This may be a thriller but it is also a book about humanity.

However, all the well researched medical conditions and fascinating themes aside, what the reader actually has here in Emma Curtis’s When I Find You is a fantastic, manipulative and heart- thumpingly good story. As the story raced to its conclusion I had no idea how it might actually resolve itself as my guesses along the way had been wrong.

I took When I Find You on a trip and it was perfect holiday reading, making me look at those around me in a whole new light! I really recommend it.

About Emma Curtis

Emma Curtis was born in Brighton and now lives in London with her husband. After raising two children and working various jobs, her fascination with the darker side of domestic life inspired her to write her acclaimed debut novel, One Little Mistake. When I Find You is her second thriller.

You can follow Emma on Twitter @emmacurtisbooks and find her on Facebook.