Rock Paper Scissors
Book Details
Rock Paper Scissors
⚠️ Trigger Warnings
- Animal cruelty and neglect
- Death of a parent
- Infertility and miscarriage
- Murder and violence
- Infidelity
- Entrapment and claustrophobia
- Medical distress (asthma, panic attacks)
- Childhood neglect and foster care
- Psychological manipulation and gaslighting
⏱️ 2-Minute Spoiler Summary
Amelia and Adam Wright travel to a remote chapel in the Scottish Highlands after winning a weekend getaway, hoping to repair their failing marriage. The isolated setting quickly becomes unsettling: strange events occur, doors lock unexpectedly, and Amelia believes someone is watching them. Their dog goes missing, their car is sabotaged, and they realize they may be trapped.
Interwoven throughout the story are annual anniversary letters written by Adam’s wife, detailing the evolution of their relationship, including infertility struggles, career tensions, and betrayal. These letters initially appear to be from Amelia—but gradually reveal a deeper truth.
A third perspective emerges: Robin, a reclusive woman living nearby, who secretly observes the couple and manipulates events inside the chapel. It’s eventually revealed that Robin is Adam’s original wife, not Amelia. Amelia had an affair with Adam and took Robin’s place after their marriage collapsed.
Robin orchestrated the entire trip as revenge. She lures the couple to the chapel, isolates them, and exposes long-buried secrets—including that Amelia was responsible for the death of Adam’s mother years earlier. As tensions escalate, violence erupts between the three.
In the aftermath, Robin and Adam reunite, while Amelia disappears. However, a final twist reveals Adam’s own hidden guilt: he was involved in the accident that killed his mother, a truth he never disclosed.
The novel closes with lingering ambiguity and a sense that not all truths have fully surfaced.
📖 Full Spoiler Summary
❄️ The Journey to Blackwater
Adam Wright, a screenwriter with prosopagnosia (face blindness), travels with his wife Amelia Wright to a remote chapel in Blackwater, Scotland, during a severe snowstorm. Amelia explains that she won the weekend trip through a raffle at her workplace, Battersea Dogs Home, and frames it as an opportunity to repair their struggling marriage. Their dog, Bob, accompanies them.
When they arrive, the chapel is empty and isolated, with no staff present. Inside, they find typed notes addressed to them, including instructions about food and supplies, suggesting someone had prepared for their stay. The building is cold, minimally furnished, and difficult to navigate, with multiple locked doors and limited electricity.
🕯️ Disturbances Inside the Chapel
As they settle in, unusual incidents begin to occur. Amelia reports seeing a face outside one of the windows, though Adam does not confirm it. The power cuts out intermittently, and interior spaces shift from accessible to locked without explanation.
While retrieving wine from a cellar, Amelia becomes trapped when the trapdoor closes above her during a power outage. She experiences an asthma attack before Adam is able to open the door and bring her out. The event increases tension between them, adding to the strain already present in their relationship.
Interspersed with these events are anniversary letters written by Adam’s wife, beginning in 2007. The letters recount the progression of their marriage, including their early relationship, attempts to have children through IVF, and Adam’s career success adapting novels by Henry Winter. Over time, the letters describe growing emotional distance and dissatisfaction within the marriage.
🐕 Disappearance and Isolation
The following morning, Adam and Amelia discover that their dog, Bob, is missing. They search the chapel and surrounding grounds without success. Snow continues to block access to the area.
When they attempt to leave, they find that all four tires on their car have been slashed. This prevents them from driving out of the valley. A nearby cottage appears to be occupied, and Adam sees a woman inside, but she does not respond when they knock or attempt to speak with her.
The couple returns to the chapel, aware that they are unable to leave and that another person is likely nearby.
✉️ The Letters and Identity Reveal
The anniversary letters continue, describing a turning point in the marriage. Adam is revealed to have had an affair with his wife’s best friend. Following this discovery, his wife leaves him. The letters indicate that another woman later enters Adam’s life and becomes his new partner.
This information establishes that the letters were not written by Amelia. Instead, they were written by Robin, Adam’s first wife.
Robin is also identified as the woman living in the nearby cottage. She has been observing Adam and Amelia and is connected to the events occurring at the chapel.
🕰️ Blackwater’s History and Hidden Spaces
While exploring further, Adam and Amelia discover a headstone indicating that Henry Winter died in 2018. This conflicts with Adam’s belief that he has been in recent contact with the author.
Inside the chapel, they locate a hidden study containing items connected to Adam’s past, including anniversary gifts referenced in the letters. These discoveries indicate that the chapel belonged to Henry Winter.
Robin is revealed to be Henry Winter’s estranged daughter. After his death, she remained at Blackwater and began completing his unfinished manuscripts, sending them to his agent under his name. Adam’s recent professional correspondence, believed to be with Henry, had actually been with Robin.
It becomes clear that Robin arranged the raffle and deliberately brought Adam and Amelia to the chapel.
🔪 The Confrontation
Robin provides Adam with a final letter revealing a past connection between him and Amelia. As teenagers, Amelia was involved in the hit-and-run accident that killed Adam’s mother. Due to his prosopagnosia, Adam did not recognize her later in life. Amelia, however, recognized Adam and later sought him out, eventually forming a relationship with him.
In the chapel kitchen, Adam confronts Amelia with this information. During the confrontation, Adam recalls additional details from the incident and reveals that he was driving the stolen car at the time of the accident, with Amelia present as a passenger.
The confrontation escalates, and Amelia attempts to attack Adam with a knife. Robin enters the scene and kills Amelia using a pair of scissors.
🌒 Aftermath
Following Amelia’s death, Adam and Robin remain at Blackwater. They resume a partnership in which Robin continues writing under Henry Winter’s name, and Adam adapts the work for film.
At a later time, a private investigator named Samuel Smith arrives at the chapel. He observes that Henry Winter’s grave has been altered and marked differently. Nearby, he discovers a glass box containing a sapphire ring still attached to a severed finger, indicating that physical evidence connected to the events at Blackwater remains on the property.
The events at the chapel are not publicly resolved, and the site remains isolated.
🔚 Ending Explained
Your polished, thematic explanation of the ending goes here.
Clarify symbolism, character decisions, tone, themes, and future implications.
👤 Characters & Fates
🔶 Main Characters
🔷 Supporting Characters
🕳️ Potential Plot Holes
Plot Holes & Logical Questions
1. The Inhaler Timeline
Amelia’s asthma medication appears inconsistently throughout the story.
Adam is able to retrieve and use her inhaler during the crypt incident, suggesting it is functional at that point. Later, Robin states she emptied an inhaler from the bedroom and took it. Another inhaler is then discovered in the study, and during the final confrontation, Amelia’s inhaler is empty.
The sequence suggests multiple inhalers may exist, but the narrative does not clearly establish this, creating uncertainty around which inhaler is where—and when.
2. Prosopagnosia and Recognition
Adam’s face blindness is central to the plot, explaining how he fails to recognize key people in his life. He relies on voice, scent, and touch to identify others.
However, over the course of long-term relationships, differences in physical presence—such as height, build, or mannerisms—would likely become familiar. The extent to which two different partners could remain indistinguishable to him over time is left open to interpretation.
3. The “Staff Raffle” Setup
Amelia believes she legitimately won the Blackwater trip through a workplace raffle at Battersea Dogs Home. It is later revealed that the trip was orchestrated.
The logistics of how someone living in isolation could manipulate a specific workplace raffle to ensure a targeted outcome are not fully explained, leaving a gap in how the setup was executed.
4. Henry Winter’s Ongoing Career
Henry Winter is revealed to have died in 2018, yet new work continues to be published under his name, with no apparent disruption.
While the manuscripts are completed and submitted posthumously, the absence of scrutiny—from publishers, agents, or financial institutions—raises questions about how such a public figure’s death could remain undiscovered for an extended period.
5. The Hit-and-Run Memory Shift
Adam’s recollection of his mother’s death changes significantly. For most of the story, he remembers witnessing the accident from a distance. Later, he recalls being directly involved as the driver.
The shift is attributed to the unreliability of memory, but the scale of the discrepancy—from observer to participant—may feel abrupt given the clarity of his earlier recollections.
6. The Final Evidence
At the conclusion, physical evidence connected to the central crime is discovered at Blackwater Chapel, including items directly tied to the event.
Given the level of planning and control demonstrated earlier, the presence of visible, incriminating evidence in an accessible location introduces questions about why it was left behind.
📚 Book Club Q&A's
⭐ Final Rating & Thoughts
I had way too much fun with Rock Paper Scissors. This was my first time reading Alice Feeney, and it absolutely won’t be my last.
The setup pulled me in fast—the failing marriage, the isolated chapel, the uneasy tension—but what really worked for me was how everything kept shifting. Just when I thought I understood the dynamic between Adam and Amelia, the story flipped it. Then flipped it again. The dual perspectives and those anniversary letters were doing a lot of heavy lifting, and it paid off.
I did feel a slight slowdown in the middle, but honestly, it didn’t matter once the final act hit. The twists didn’t just shock—they actually connected. The reveal about Robin, the truth about the past, and especially that last layer with Adam completely recontextualized everything that came before it.
And that ending? Dark in the best way. The image of the grave, the finger, the implication of what’s been buried (literally and figuratively) stuck with me long after I finished.
Overall, this one delivered exactly what I want from a psychological thriller: a creepy atmosphere, messy characters, and twists that feel earned.
✨ Adaptation description
Rock Paper Scissors is currently being adapted into a six-part Netflix limited series, bringing its twist-driven story to the screen.
Production:
The project is being developed by Orchid Pictures, led by producer Suzanne Mackie (known for The Crown). The rights were optioned prior to the novel’s publication in 2021.
Platform:
The series is planned for release on Netflix.
Story Focus:
The adaptation centers on Adam and Amelia Wright, a married couple whose relationship is tested during an isolated trip to the Scottish Highlands. The narrative incorporates Adam’s face blindness alongside themes of secrecy, identity, and deception.
Status:
As of early 2026, the series remains in development. No official casting announcements or release date have been confirmed.
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