Publishers Weekly
07/19/2021
Londoners Amelia and Adam Wright, the couple at the center of this craftily plotted if flawed domestic thriller from bestseller Feeney (His & Hers), are spending the weekend at spooky Blackwater Chapel in the Scottish Highlands on what is meant to be a last-ditch effort to save their 10-year marriage. Each harbors darker agendas for the weekend, as does the mysterious, hermit-like neighbor, Robin, who frightens Amelia when Amelia catches the woman peering at her through a chapel window. The plot takes some perilous turns in ways both predictable—a power outage, dangerously loose stones in the wall of the chapel’s belfry—and not, as alternating narrations from the trio open a Pandora’s box packed with secrets, lies, and betrayals. Feeney’s signature misdirection sets up gasp-worthy twists down the stretch even if they, like the characters, come off as arbitrary and artificial. In contrast to His & Hers, some may walk away from this one feeling more snookered than satisfied. Agent: Jonny Geller, Curtis Brown. (Sept.)
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“Feeney lives up to her reputation as the “queen of the twist”…This page-turner will keep you guessing.”
—Real Simple
“Marriage has never been so disturbing…or so compelling. Alice Feeney has written a staggering novel filled with tension, suspense, and an ending that will leave you flabbergasted. You think you know where it’s going, but you have no idea.”
—Samantha Downing, bestselling author of My Lovely Wife
“Chilling and clever, with a twist so sharp you’ll get whiplash. Rock Paper Scissors is the kind of blistering, one-sit-read that Alice Feeney is just so incredibly good at.”
—Chris Whitaker, bestselling author of We Begin at the End
“I loved it!”
—Sarah Pinborough, bestselling author of Behind Her Eyes
“Entertaining and grippingly suspenseful on every page, this is a book not to be missed.”
—Deadly Pleasures
“Rock Paper Scissors is a perfectly-plotted thriller that hooked me from the opening scene. A really gripping story with clever switch-back twists that kept me off-balance (checking over my shoulder!) the whole nail-biting way. A scissor-sharp portrayal of a marriage on the rocks. Atmospheric, entertaining and clever.”
—Philippa East, author of Little White Lies
“Deliciously dark . . . An exquisitely constructed, hugely entertaining thriller.”
—Catherine Ryan Howard, author of The Nothing Man
“This one’s already been optioned, but I’d encourage everyone to read it before it heads to the screen…The two dovetail towards an explosive conclusion that leaves us with just enough ambiguity to linger in the reader’s mind long after finishing.”
—CrimeReads
"This complicated gothic thriller of dueling spouses and homicidal writers is cleverly plotted and neatly tied up."
—Kirkus
“Sharp, cunning, and packed with shocks, Rock Paper Scissors gives new meaning to the word 'twisty.' A broken marriage, so many secrets, and a setting that will literally give you chills: just when you think you know what's going on, Alice Feeney sets off a new shockwave.”
—Laurie Elizabeth Flynn, author of The Girls Are All So Nice Here
"Not just fiendish but positively Feeneyish – dark, ingenious and very clever."
—Cara Hunter, author of Close to Home
NOVEMBER 2021 - AudioFile
Narrators Richard Armitage and Stephanie Racine introduce Amelia and Adam Wright, who travel to Scotland for their 10th anniversary, hoping to save their struggling marriage. The story is told through the alternating points of view of the Wrights, and later, through that of the mysterious Robin. During a raging snowstorm, they arrive at Blackwater Chapel, a guesthouse. Racine’s unpretentious Amelia is frustrated by her husband’s indifference toward her and hero worship of a mystery writer for whom he’s written screenplays. Armitage’s egotistical and distant Adam belittles his wife and shows warmth only for their dog. As they settle into their bitterly cold room, endless surprises and shocks begin. Both Racine and Armitage affectingly create unreliable narrators, with Robin adding a strong dose of horror—and maybe reality. S.G.B. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2021-06-16
An unhappy British couple attempt to rekindle the magic with a weekend trip to a remote spot in Scotland.
How is she tricking me? Feeney, the author of Sometimes I Lie (2017) and His and Hers (2020), has trained her readers to start asking this question immediately with her puzzle-box narratives. Well, you won't find out here. Only the basics: Amelia's won a weekend getaway in an office raffle, and as the novel opens, she and her screenwriter husband, Adam, who suffers from face blindness, along with their dog, Bob, are miserably making their way through a snowstorm to a destination in the Scottish Highlands which is no Airbnb Superhost, that's for sure. A freezing cold, barely converted church with many locked rooms and malfunctioning electricity, the property also features a mysterious caretaker who has left firewood and a nice note but seems to be spying through the window. Both Adam and Amelia seem to be considering this weekend the occasion for ending the marriage by any means necessary—then Bob disappears. The narrative goes back and forth with first-person chapters by Amelia and Adam interleaved with a series of letters written to Adam on their anniversary through the years and keyed to the traditional gifts: paper, cotton, wood, leather, etc. There's also a rock and a scissors, referring to the children's game of the book title, which the couple use to make everyday decisions like "Should we stay together?" Offstage is the famous writer Henry Winter, whose novels Adam has made his fortune adapting; through several author-characters, Feeney weaves in sometimes-grim observations about the literary life. On meeting a sourpuss cashier at the rural grocery store: "The woman wore her bitterness like a badge; the kind of person who writes one-star book reviews."
This complicated gothic thriller of dueling spouses and homicidal writers is cleverly plotted and neatly tied up.
