- Genre: Mystery/thriller/domestic suspense
- Length: 302 pages
- Buy: Rock Paper Scissors: A Novel
Summary:
Things have been wrong with Mr and Mrs Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife.
Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts–paper, cotton, pottery, tin–and each year Adam’s wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after.
Ten years of marriage. Ten years of secrets. And an anniversary they will never forget.
My Take:
I just realized how misleading this summary is, but I honestly don’t know how it could have been written differently without giving away that twist–and that twist is worth the slight manipulation.
That said, this is one of the best domestic suspense thrillers I’ve ever read, if not the best. I usually don’t like stories from multiple viewpoints because I feel like so many viewpoints often result in under-developed characters and twists that don’t really work when you think about them for more than a minute. This book uses each and every viewpoint brilliantly, and the format of multiple viewpoints interchanged with the letters from the wife is really what builds in that dramatic twist.
The characters (up to a certain point) are all likable but flawed, and every single one of them have a dark secret or two. There is not a moment in this book that was not necessary to the plot, and the pacing is absolute perfection. As a writer, I learned so much from reading this.
If you like domestic thrillers like Gone Girl, but you’re sick of copy cats, this book is for you!
A Couple of B's 