Rock Paper Scissors ⭑⭑⭑⭑
Genre: Thriller
US Publication: September 7, 2021
Print: 295 pages
Audio: 10 hours 22 minutes
Confetti Rating: 4 stars
REVIEW:
I have this very vivid image of Alice Feeney attending a writing workshop with peers like Paula Hawkins, Shari Lapena, and Lisa Jewell. They line up for the latest exercise, which is to pull thought-starting prompts from a bag at random. Whatever they choose must be the basis of their next thriller. Alice reaches in, pulls out a slip of paper, reads the single word “prosopagnosia,” and smiles wickedly knowing she’s drawn a surefire winner.
Prosopagnosia, better known as face blindness, was in fact the spark that inspired the entire story of her latest (and greatest), Rock Paper Scissors. What makes for a more unreliable narrator than a man who cannot recognize faces, even the one of his wife?
So here we’ve got Adam Wright, a cranky ass-bite of a face blind husband who’s agreed to go along with his wife on a weekend retreat at a converted chapel in remote Scotland (during a snowstorm, natch), to try to save their marriage. It’s pretty spooky up there, and you start to wonder if Feeney has dipped her toe into supernatural waters. Things are going bump in the night, and it’s not Mr. and Mrs. Wright if you know what I’m sayin.
Does the plot really matter to you though? If you’re still with me, you just want to know if there are any twists, and if they’re good ones, right? Well yes indeedy my friends, there are twists aplenty. Good ones, too.
Rock Paper Scissors is an atmospheric, quick read that’ll keep you guessing until the end. Then you’ll forget pretty much everything about it as you move on to your next thriller, but that’s okay. I have a feeling that thought-starter grab bag has infinite ideas for Feeney and her psychological suspense-spewing cohort.
PUBLISHER 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.
Ten years of marriage. Ten years of secrets. And an anniversary they will never forget.
Rock Paper Scissors is the latest exciting domestic thriller from the queen of the killer twist, New York Times bestselling author Alice Feeney.