Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney

 

Adam and Amelia Wright are celebrating their wedding anniversary.  If they ever needed to celebrate, it's this year.  They have been slowly drifting apart until they are like two people stranded on separate ice floes that are moving further away from each other day by day.  Adam is a scriptwriter, rewriting other people's works for the movies.  He has had ambitions to write his own novels but can't really find the time with all the work he takes on.  He also has the condition of face blindness where he can't recognize anyone by their face, even his wife.  Amelia works at a dog rescue where she can share the love she can't give a child as they haven't been able to have children.

When Amelia gets an email saying that she has won a weekend away in a giveaway, they decide this is the perfect opportunity to get away and rediscover each other.  The location is a remote repurposed church up in the Scottish highlands.  They are glad to get away but when they arrive they start to wonder.  The church is fairly dilapidated and it is very remote with no other houses or towns around.  Inside it is dusty and cold and there is little sign they are expected.  They eventually find a note saying there are frozen meals and a cellar full of wine and they decide to make do.  However, they aren't prepared for the power to go out while they are down in the cellar, making it difficult to find their way back upstairs.  Worse, they seem to be catching glimpses of someone outside and their dog barks periodically as if he is aware of a stranger as well.  What is the story?

Alice Feeney has written a taut tale of love gone astray, betrayals both professionally and personally and a quest for revenge that has taken years to plan.  The secrets are revealed in turn, each one totally reframing the story and what the reader believes about the couple.  Alice Feeney is an author and journalist with books that are optioned for tv series.  She knows exactly how much to reveal and when to raise the tension and surprise the reader at every turn.  This book is recommended for thriller readers.