Quick take
When a remote anniversary getaway turns eerie, a couple learns if their marriage can bear the weight of their secrets.
Good to know
Fast read
Unreliable narrator
Marriage issues
Writer's life
Synopsis
Think you know the person you married? Think again…
Things have been wrong with Mr and Mrs Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife.
Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts—paper, cotton, pottery, tin—and each year Adam’s wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after.
Free sample
Get an early look from the first pages of Rock Paper Scissors.
Rock Paper Scissors
My husband doesn’t recognize my face.
I feel him staring at me as I drive, and wonder what he sees. Nobody else looks familiar to him either, but it is still strange to think that the man I married wouldn’t be able to pick me out in a police lineup.
I know the expression his face is wearing without having to look. It’s the sulky, petulant, “I told you so” version, so I concentrate on the road instead. I need to. The snow is falling faster now, it’s like driving in a whiteout, and the windscreen wipers on my Morris Minor Traveller are struggling to cope. The car—like me—was made in 1978. If you look after things, they will last a lifetime, but I suspect my husband might like to trade us both in for a younger model. Adam has checked his seat belt a hundred times since we left home, and his hands are balled into conjoined fists on his lap. The journey from London up to Scotland should have taken no more than eight hours, but I daren’t drive any faster in this storm. Even though it’s starting to get dark, and it seems we might be lost in more ways than one.
Why I love it
Megan Miranda
Author, Such a Quiet Place
Suspense is always my go-to genre—I love the fast-pace, the puzzle-solving aspect, the mysteries hidden inside the story, and also the mysteries hidden inside other people. And wow does Rock Paper Scissors take all of these elements to a whole new level. This is an absolutely propulsive read, brimming with atmosphere and full of surprises.
This is the story of Adam and Amelia Wright, a married couple on the brink. Adam, a successful screenwriter, lives with face blindness and cannot recognize those around him. When Amelia wins a weekend getaway to the Scottish Highlands, what begins as a potential romantic weekend to save their marriage instead kicks off an eerie, unsettling sequence of events. Told in multiple points of view, each narrator has a different plan for the weekend, and neither fully trusts the other. The location only increases the suspense: a rumored-to-be haunted, converted chapel in the middle of nowhere, isolated and cut off by an incoming snowstorm. Even reading in the heat of summer, you can feel the cold seeping in, along with a steadily growing dread, as you come to realize the Wrights are not alone....
Rock Paper Scissors is a tense, chilling thriller told both over the course of one unsettling weekend, and also through ten years of anniversary letters interspersed throughout the chapters. With a gothic, atmospheric setting, dueling points of view, and gasp-worthy surprises, this is the type of one-sitting read that will have readers turning pages deep into the night.
Member ratings (46,569)
Courtney W.
Warner Robins, GA
First book I’ve read in a while where I had no idea what was happening. Excellent book. The switching between each characters point of view along with letters from the past was amazing ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Jennifer J.
Oshkosh, WI
I loved this book! Alice Feeney is an absolute genius when it comes to twists and surprise endings! Her characters are perfectly written and you will never guess the ending! Highly recommend! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Samantha M.
Devon, PA
Wow! I’ve read so many thrillers that I almost always see the plot twist, but this one got me. Really creative. I loved the build up and the way the characters and story all tied together. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Teresa M.
Boston, MA
Best book I’ve read in a while! There’s a big twist at the end and I couldn’t put this one down. I’ll likely reread this one, which doesn’t happen often. It’s mystery, suspense, love, horror-everythin
Lenna M.
Kansas city, MO
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ WHAT A PAGE TURNER!!! I could not read fast enough at the end! The entire time you THINK you are on the edge of your seat until the twist made me fall completely off the edge!!!