Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney Book Review

 Rock Paper Scissors 

By Alice Feeney 

Published Year: 2021 

Page Count: 294 pages

Medium Used: Kindle PW 

Genre : Contemporary Fiction, Psychological Fiction, Thriller, Suspense, Prosopognosia, Face Blindness, 2025-read. 

Rating : 5/5 😀🥰🤩😋😍

I found this book very engaging. Its an ingenious work. The present day experiences of Adam and Amelia are alternated with the letters Adam's wife writes him - one for each year for the ten years of their marriage, each written on their anniversary. She doesn't send him the letters .. keeps them in her bossom and only for her perusal.  I found something not connecting with this whole one letter a year business - the time line didn't match. Like the wife writes each letter from 2008 and they were married for like 10 years .. so that should mean the current year should be 2018 .. but in fact it is 2020 .. I was racking my brain about where the two years went.. when the surprise twist is revealed! I was expecting something along the lines of a hidden past .. but I was looking in a totally wrong direction. I was blown away by the two twists that mark the story and make it an unsuspecting, brilliant thriller! And towards the end, in a twist, it felt like .. Adam and his wife got away with murder .. I wondered if that was absolutely necessary and what alternative route/choice they could have taken? Couldn't they have spared the poor woman's life? Both wife and husband have twisted/dark pasts that they don't fully reveal to the other.. there are skeletons locked up and kept in the closet. Perhaps they will carry those memories with them to their graves! Why rock the boat when it is smooth sailing, right?

On the outset, from the outside, we see a couple invited to stay for a couple of days in a renovated, isolated Blackwater Chapel, in Scotland, by its housekeeper. The couple make the journey while it is snowing heavily and when they reach there, they find that they are fully cut off from the outside world. There is no police station, petrol bunk, mobile network connection or any kind of grocery store within eye tracking distance. They only notice one thatched roof cottage near by and when they visit the house, the husband sees a woman with overgrown white hair, rocking a white rabbit, sitting in a chair.  They assume she is a witch and rush back. They find notes in the chapel which give them the chills .. there was a history to the chapel .. in the 16th century, it was known to be a prison house for women and children accused of witchcraft. They were housed in this chapel before getting pulled out and burnt at stake. So the chapel .. although renovated.. is a mad house and haunted. Thoroughly freaked out, they make an attempt to gather all their belongings and run back to London. But all the four tires of their beat up car are slashed by someone. Earlier, they notice some woman letting herself in to the chapel with a key. They assume this tyre slashing is also her work. Defeated and utterly lost about what to do, they wander back inside. They discover a secret, hidden door and that reveals one part of the mystery to them. 

Going into the letters the wife writes to her husband, we see a crumbling marriage. The husband is a workaholic. He indulges himself in reading books and writing screenplays for their Tv/movie adaptation. He also suffers from a condition of face blindness, also called Prosopognosia. He can't see the difference between one face and the other. He can't even make out his face in the mirror. Its a condition he was born with and this plays a major part in the plot .. like why things happened and why he wasn't aware of the person who perpetuated them, why he was clueless and didn't identify the person when their paths crossed again. The wife works at an animal shelter and fully supports her husband in his work. But as time drags on, she notices how his work consumes him and he is giving more importance to it than investing into his marriage. She thinks of breaking apart the relationship but everytime she expresses such a desire, the man brushes it aside. He doesn't want a divorce.. until  things go so south that they are left with no other option. 

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. I liked the subtle differences in the character portrayals of Amelia, Adam's wife and Robin who turns into an ally for him at the end. This book is for all the mystery lovers out there. There are also trinkets of philosophical and wise observations tossed through out the narrative .. that made me underline many statements and sometimes paragraphs while reading this on my kindle. I would share some of these underlined paragraphs to my friends and they showed great interest in the book too. Pick it up, seriously! And read a mind twisting thriller, now! 😀😀