Book Review – Rock Paper Scissors – An Absorbing Tale
Table of Contents
My Rating – 4 out of 5
Plot Summary (Storyline) – Rock Paper Scissors
My first Alice Feeney and I’m glad I’m here! A twisty tale where you are never sure who is the good guy and who is bad. At every turn, something happens which turns the facts around and makes you rethink what you have been thinking till now. The presentation of the events are deliberately confusing and by the time you reach the end you realize how you have been chasing the wrong line of thought from the beginning. And then just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, she throws you another curveball, and you go off in another direction altogether. Overall, a very pleasing experience altogether. Now let’s get to the storyline…
Amelia and her husband Adam, along with their old dog Bob. are driving to the Scottish Highlands for a weekend away from the hustle and bustle of London, in an effort to salvage their marriage, which has hit choppy waters of late. Amelia works in the Battersea Dog Shelter and Adam is a screenwriter, who has given up his aspirations to have his own story published many years ago. He now writes screenplays based on the famous thrillers written by the eccentric writer Henry Winter and is quite successful in doing that. Henry is reclusive and very picky about who he chooses to adapt his novels and Adam is lucky to have been chosen by him for that purpose.
There is a snowstorm raging along their journey and Amelia struggles to convince a brooding Adam that this is a good idea. She ha sone this weekend stay in a lucky raffle at work and when they arrive they discover that this is no five-star stay in the lap of luxury. Blackwater Loch is in the middle of nowhere, and the Blackwater Chapel is their converted residence for their stay. The beginning of their stay is spooky, there is nobody around except a few notes from the Housekeeper, a cellar full of wine, a freezer full of ready-to-eat foods, and multiple locked doors. The power supply is erratic and Amelia thinks she can see faces at the windows watching them!
The Chapel itself is as desolate as can be, the nearest village miles away and with only a shut-down pub and a deserted cottage in the vicinity. The chapters are alternately presented from Adam’s and Amelia’s perspectives with annual letters to Adam, on their anniversary, written by his wife. It is also kind of clear that despite their best intentions, this marriage will not survive and a decision, one way or another, will be taken here. The spookiness of their surroundings increases with every passing hour, with somebody slipping in and out of their Chapel, without their knowledge. Their power gets cut off and weird noises permeate the nights. There is darkness in souls around, the only mystery is whose…
Conclusion – Book Review of Rock Paper Scissors
This is pretty nail-biting as you would be forming different scenes in your mind as the facts are presented to you, but then the author turns it around on its head! The atmosphere is built up so well that you feel the chill of snowfall and the creepiness of the surroundings. To be stuck in a desolate and spooky place like that will suck the life out of any light-hearted venture, and this is the serious matter of saving or dissolving a marriage. The twists in the story keep coming at you at a breakneck speed, particularly towards the end.
Definitely, a must-read but since I haven’t read her earlier works, I cannot compare them with this but, on its own, this is a spine-chilling novel, though not in the spooky sense of the word.
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