When I Find You by Emma Curtis

WHEN I FIND YOU

EMMA CURTIS

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 she’ll make him pay.

This is a very clever book. And a very engaging one. Oh, and a really great read! I was immediately gripped from the opening chapter as we discover Laura can't piece together her memories of the night before - made more complicated because of her face blindness which she keeps a secret from everyone apart from one colleague. It's an immediately compelling premise and the perfect hook for the start of a psychological thriller. 

I really enjoyed the way I found myself having to carefully pay attention to the descriptions of the characters and really having to pay attention to how Laura named her colleagues, friends and acquaintances. With her condition, Laura has to find other ways to identify people but what if they cut their hair or change their clothes? I thought this sense of unease, emotional detachment and aloofness which Laura emits was brilliantly captured throughout the novel and added a whole other level of tension, intrigue and anxiety to the storyline. 

Obviously the main thrust of the story is about what happened to Laura and how this one night becomes a moment reveals itself to become something much more sinister, dark and dangerous  - a secret which threatens to destroy Laura and the life she has constructed for herself. However, I must say I was also captivated by the smaller details within the story and the fact that Laura keeps her face blindness hidden from her colleagues. I was exhausted shadowing her through one day at work - let alone a work party where she has to meet people for the first time and when her skills of deception and survival are fully tested to the limit. Curtis' ability to write a character suffering from this condition is incredibly impressive. At times it's hard to relate to Laura, on a few occasions it's hard to like her but this is all deliberate and due to the constant pressure she is under to disguise her situation and to compete with the rest of her team, hold down her job and maintain relationships within the office. Ultimately though, you are always on Laura's side and as her life begins to unravel, you are completely on her side, desperately looking on willing her to find out who is responsible for this distressing situation she's ended up in. 

Although Laura is the main protagonist, we also hear from Rebecca and the chapters almost alternate between the two characters. Rebecca's voice is written in third person to Laura's first so it's always easy to know where you are in the story but it also helps to create more pieces in the jigsaw and alerts the reader to spot more clues, hints and suggestions that all is not as it seems. It also helps challenge the trust and reliability of the narrators - an effective tool and one used here by Curtis to pleasing effect. 

This is a tale full of twists, turns, shocks, secrets and revelations - and each of these moments is delivered perfectly. Curtis manages the complex plot with confidence, assuredness and with a delicious level of tension and intrigue which is sustained throughout the entire novel with great success. I was desperate to find out what was going on, what had happened and was as embroiled in the plot as Laura herself. Curtis writes well, with fluency and well judged cliff hangers. A perfect read for all fans of domestic suspense and for anyone who likes a good thriller with complex characters and intriguing relationships between characters. It's thought provoking and would make a good book club read as there are plenty of issues explored in this book relating to women, work, relationships and power as well as the main character's face blindness. I recommend. 

And look forward to reading more from this author! 

You can read my review of Emma Curtis's first novel, One Little Mistake, here.