Good Evening All,

I hope that you’re all well. I’m having the cosiest, most relaxing of evenings I could ever imagine. I’m sat in the living room, with the fire burning, reading (and now writing) and there is nowhere else I’d rather be right now. I absolutely adore my new home. It’s the perfect cottage for me and all my books!

Book 📖

Thank you to @alicewriterland and @HQstories for this advanced copy of Rock Paper Scissors in return for an honest review. Rock Paper Scissors was published on 19th August 2021 and you can get a copy here.

Description 🔖

Mr and Mrs Wright have had problems in their marriage for quite some time. Adam and Amelia win a secluded weekend getaway in a raffle and conclude that it could be just the thing to save their marriage.

Every anniversary the couple exchange gifts in-keeping with the traditional themes of paper, cotton, pottery etc and every year, Mrs Wright pens a letter to her husband that she doesn’t let him read. Until the trip to Scotland. It was always known that this trip could save Adam and Amelia’s marriage, except one of them is a liar and someone else doesn’t want their marriage to be saved.

General Thoughts 🤔

There were parts of this book that genuinely had me petrified. The eeriness and creepiness of the chapel that Adam and Amelia were staying in was captured brilliantly by the author. I always listen to music via my headphones whilst I read and there was more than one occasion I had to slip them off as I thought I heard someone creeping around my own cottage.

The twist in this book is so clever. I had a few different theories and none of them were right. There were some clues along the way that I sensed were going to be important, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. Once it became clear what was going on, everything slot into place. Except there was another twist following it that took me by complete surprise again. The surprises in this book really were the gift that kept on giving.

Characters 👬👭👫

I started the book with negative feelings towards Adam. He seemed very selfish, self absorbed and I felt sorry for Amelia having to be second fiddle to his career. However my opinion of him changed and morphed throughout the book. When I had had chance to think about it, I started to really empathise with his condition (face blindness; he couldn’t recognise even his own face) and I found it hard to imagine what that must be like to live with.

Although I felt those things about Adam from the beginning, I didn’t take very well to Amelia either. I thought that she was demanding and unreasonable. She came across as devious and I instantly thought that it had to be her that was telling lies and keeping secrets within their marriage. I’m not confirming that she was or she wasn’t, but I was certainly in for a surprise.

Writing Style ✍️

My favourite thing about this book was the way in which it was structured. The chapters were written from the perspective of Adam, Amelia or Robin with the anniversary letters sprinkled in between. The mix of perspectives and jumping between timelines kept me highly engaged and worked really well to perfectly pace the story.

I would love to know how the author came up with this plot and the idea of how to tell it. I also wonder which came first, if any. I loved the sprinkling of horror that was added on top to give us readers all of the spine tingles.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖️

I was hooked on this book as soon as I started reading it. I devoured every page and I’d love to be able to do it again without having already read it. It was tense and chilling and at moments jaw dropping. I definitely recommend this book, especially now that the nights are drawing in and it’s getting colder.

😍😍😍😍😍