Looking for a plot summary or spoilers for Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney? Want to discuss the ending? Want the Rock Paper Scissors ending explained? Me too. Check out my Spoiler Discussion for Rock Paper Scissors and let’s figure it out!
Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney
Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney was published on September 7, 2021 by Flatiron Books. Thanks to them for the advance copy!
Brief Synopsis: 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 Mr. and Mrs. Wright 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.
Table of Contents:
Plot Summary for Rock Paper Scissors
The Ending of Rock Paper Scissors Explained
Spoiler Discussion for Rock Paper Scissors
NEW: Rock Paper Scissors Movie News!!
Plot Summary of Rock Paper Scissors
Married couple Adam and Amelia, plus their dog, Bob, are headed to Scotland for a weekend trip that Amelia won as a prize in a work raffle.
Adam is a screenwriter with face blindness (could this be a plot device? hmmm) whose screenplay, Rock Paper Scissors, is about a man who writes annual letters to his wife on their anniversary.
Adam was never able to get his screenplay made and now adapts other writers’ novels. Amelia works at an animal rescue charity.
They arrive at their lodging, which is an old converted chapel that seems remote and deserted. Adam notes that he saw Amelia take his phone out of the car and leave it back at home.
Rock Paper Scissors alternates between narrative and anniversary letters written by Adam’s wife, which I will summarize in their actual place in the book.
First anniversary letter (paper): HUGE CLUE: the wife in the letters signs them “your wife” which is a BIG hint that the person writing these letters is NOT Amelia. In this letter, the wife reveals that Adam got a job adapting his favorite novelist’s work because of her, and she’s keeping this a secret.
In the present, Amelia reflects on her unhappiness with their marriage. She sees a face in the window. There’s also no cell service.
Second anniversary letter (cotton): Adam buys a house for his wife as a surprise.
Third anniversary letter(leather): Adam and his wife are at a party with novelist Henry Winter.
False alarm: the face Amelia sees in the window is…. a sheep. Amelia still feels like she’s being watched.
New narrator: a woman named Robin, who lives in a cottage near the chapel. She watches the couple arrive and settle in.
Amelia goes down into the cellar to get wine, but the lights go out and she is trapped. Adam finds Amelia and brings her asthma inhaler. They find their bedroom, which has been painted the same color as their bedroom at home, with the same bedding. Mysterious!
While Adam goes to explore the chapel further, he reflects that both he and Amelia cheated. Adam dreams about driving in a storm and hitting a woman in a red kimono.
Fourth anniversary letter: Adam’s wife describes their struggles with infertility.
Amelia wakes up and hears a noise. She finds Adam, who says he couldn’t sleep. He’s the one who turned the power out.
Fifth anniversary letter (wood): Adam is hanging out with October, an actress who wants to star in a theater version of Adam’s screenplay. October comes over and makes Adam and his wife an anniversary dinner.
Robin is hiding in the chapel. She knows Adam.
The next morning Amelia and Adam can’t find Bob, their dog. Inside the cottage, they find a drawer full of clippings about October, the actress. Also a history of the chapel, which is haunted. As they are searching for Bob, they find Robin’s cottage and write her a note asking for help. Bob is with Robin.
Sixth anniversary letter (iron): October has opened doors for Adam, who is adapting another Henry Winter book for the screen. Adam and his wife spend their anniversary at October’s French villa.
As they search for Bob, Adam thinks the woman in the cottage seems familiar. As they head back to the chapel, Adam runs ahead and Amelia can’t find him. He tells her that he knows who the chapel belongs to.
Seventh anniversary letter (copper): October has been found dead by suicide. Adam and his wife take a trip to New York.
Adam tells Amelia that the chapel belongs to Henry Winter, the writer. He thinks their “winning” the visit to the chapel was a ruse and that Henry is angry with him.
They hear a familiar bark and rush outside, where they find Bob’s collar on top of a gravestone belonging to …Henry Winter, who died two years before.
Adam says Henry was upset with him as he’d stopped adapting Henry’s novels to focus on his own work. They prepare to dig their car out of the snow and discover they have two flat tires.
Bob in is Robin’s cottage. Robin remembers being summoned by Henry when he was dying.
Eighth anniversary (bronze): Adam’s wife recalls arriving home and finding Henry Winter there with Adam. After she returns, they play rock-paper-scissors to determine the future of their marriage.
Adam finds the anniversary gifts his wife made for him inside the chapel.
Ninth anniversary (pottery): Adam’s wife’s friend from work at the dog shelter arrives at the house. The co-worker has changed her hair to look exactly like the wife’s hair. SINGLE WHITE FEMALE!
Adam shows Amelia the gifts he found and accuses her of being behind the trip. And if Henry died two years ago, who wrote his new book?
Tenth anniversary (tin): Adam and his wife are watching a TV interview with Henry, who disparages Adam. The wife recalls coming home and finding Adam in bed with her friend from work. He claims he thought he was sleeping with his wife.
Amelia shows Adam a picture of his first wedding, to Robin, Henry’s daughter. Robin grew up in the chapel. Robin is the one who got Adam the job adapting her father’s books. Amelia is the co-worker of Robin, the one who seduced Adam. Bob was Robin’s dog.
Robin recalls finding Amelia in bed with Adam and running off. Robin believes Henry had something to do with her mother’s death. She wrote a story about a man who drowned his wife in the bathtub and Henry punished her. Robin also finished one of Henry’s unfinished novels after his death and sent it to his agent.
Eleventh anniversary (steel): Robin writes to Adam about her new life in the chapel. She’s also writing a book with him in it.
Amelia doesn’t feel guilty about cheating with Robin’s husband. She wonders if Robin is behind bringing them to the chapel. But she thinks she’s smarter and stronger than Robin. She and Adam find a red kimono on the bed and a note on the mirror that says Rock Paper Scissors.
Twelfth anniversary (silk): This is the first anniversary letter that Robin intends to let Adam read. She didn’t tell him that Henry Winter was her father because he was a dark and dangerous man, an abusive bully.
Henry’s latest novel, Rock Paper Scissors will be about a married couple who takes a weekend away. It’s a combination of his screenplay and her letters. She will let him write the screenplay … if he ditches Amelia.
She tells him that Henry hired a PI who told him that Adam was cheating. That Amelia is a former teenage criminal who was driving the car that killed Adam’s mother. She tells him he has three choices: ROCK (he tries to escape with Amelia), PAPER (he goes back to Robin) and SCISSORS (he doesn’t want to know what that option is.)
Robin locks Adam and Amelia inside the chapel and slides a note under the door. Adam reads the letter and confronts Amelia about his mother’s death. He tells her he was never really happy with her. Amelia comes at him with a knife, and Robin comes at her with scissors.
Explanation of the Ending of Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney
Robin, Adam and Bob have returned to London. Robin’s book will be published. Adam is happy, though he feels guilty about the fact that HE was driving the car that killed his mother. Amelia was in the car with him and she got blamed, as he got out of the car after the accident and she drove away.
Sam (the PI) had been following Robin for ten years (??? Yeah, I have a lot of questions for him…)
When Sam sees that Robin and Adam are back together, he decides to drive to Scotland and tell Henry. (If he was following Robin for ten years, did he not know that Henry was dead?)
He arrives at the chapel and discovers Henry’s grave with a glass box on top of it. Henry’s tombstone has been changed from “Father of One” to “Killer of One.” Inside the box is a paper frame, a pair of scissors and a ring that’s on a severed human finger. He flees.
Spoiler Discussion for Rock Paper Scissors
What did you think of Rock Paper Scissors?
Since there were so few characters, I figured out the “your wife” scenario pretty quickly. Signing the letters “your wife” was weird and a big red flag. If the wife who wrote the anniversary letters wasn’t Amelia, it had to be Robin.
Sometimes my hunches are wrong but this one was right!
I am still puzzled about the part Adam’s face blindness played into the plot. Did he really not realize he was cheating on Robin? He tries to tell Robin that he thought it was her, but she knows him well enough to know that he’s lying. I was expecting some kind of test where Adam has to pick out which wife is which.
I guess Adam also didn’t recognize grown-up Amelia when she showed up (but people do change over that span of time.) Did he realize that he and Amelia had hit his mother and their dog with the car (maybe he recognized that red kimono?)
Was Henry responsible for his wife’s death? I found that more interesting than a lot of other things. Was that ever resolved or did I miss it? Clearly, Robin thought he did it.
Why did Robin cut off Amelia’s finger and just leave it (and the ring) there? What?? Some kind of offering to her father? I guess. I don’t know?!?
What the deal with Sam the PI? Who was paying him for the last ten years? If it was Henry, he’s dead.
Questions we are discussing in comments – join us and add your own!
Please join our discussion and if you want to see my replies (or anyone’s replies) to your comments, be sure to subscribe to replies by toggling on the bell symbol.
Amelia’s ring: too tight? Too loose? Why did Robin leave it on the grave? Allison has a great theory in the comments!
Adam: had he been to the Scottish chapel before with Robin? If so, why didn’t he say anything? Does his face blindness come and go? Is it real?
Henry: did he kill his wife? Was Robin lying about him?
Robin: Did she kill October? Did she kill Henry? Did her father really kill her mother? What were her rock-paper-scissors threats to Adam at the end?
Sam: who was paying him over the last ten years? Robin? Henry?
Are all the characters unreliable? Rose thinks so, and describes how Robin uses the chapel to set up a weird little game for Adam and Amelia, something that Adam realizes.
Rock Paper Scissor Movie News
I was on Instagram the other day and saw something very exciting:
Alice Feeney AT THE NETFLIX OFFICES!
This is as intriguing as the severed finger left on the grave.
This is what I found out:
In this interview, Alice Feeney says YES there will be a Netflix series of Rock Paper Scissors. I attended her author event in January 2026 and she said the movie is ON!
This article says the series will be filmed in the Scottish highlands. Nothing against Canada, but I love an authentic setting.
Please leave your opinions in comments – we are a friendly group and there is no such thing as a dumb question!
If you’re an Alice Feeney fan, come check out my spoiler discussion for His & Hers!
My Spoiler Discussion Post for Sometimes I Lie
A Spoiler Discussion Post for Daisy Darker
And if you love thrillers and talking about them, please consider subscribing to my monthly thriller and mystery newsletter. Every month, I run down the books coming out that month and highlight other exciting news in the mystery and thriller world.
I’ve glanced over your responses (just finished the book 2 minutes ago and HAD to do some research into the ending!) and here’s what I’m thinking:
1. Robin believed Henry killed her mother, so she changed “father of one” to “killer of one” on his tombstone.
2. Robin was the one paying Sam for the past decade— that’s why he received so many requests to check in on the home refurbishment and the dog, Bob, once Amelia moved in.
3. Since Robin has a history of being a pathological liar, or making up stories, it’s quite possible she killed her mother and October but believes in her head it was Henry and suicide, respectfully. I think it’s obvious she killed Amelia, with the scissors.
4. She left the ring, crane, and shears in the box to represent their game— rock, paper, and scissors. That’s why she no longer wanted the ring, and she left it on Amelia’s finger because it was too small for her (which Adam had pointed out earlier).
Here’s one question I still have: option rock was to try to escape with Amelia, which presumably would have resulted in Robin capturing and killing her. Option paper would reunite Robin and Adam. BUT WHAT WAS OPTION SCISSORS?
Hi Allison – thanks for coming by with all your great observations.
1. Agree 100%
2. Yes, this makes sense.
3. Interesting – I hadn’t thought that Robin might have killed her mother. I interpreted it as like father like daughter: Henry killed his wife and Robin killed Amelia and left the finger on his grave as some sort of offering. But I agree that Robin killed Amelia.
4. I like this, but why does the finger represent “rock?” And I agree that Robin’s rock-paper-scissors choices don’t make sense. To me there don’t really seem to be three choices. Either Adam goes back to Robin or not.
Hey Jen!
The sapphire stone on the ring represents rock! As I was reading the letter with choices in the moment, I immediately thought that the scissors option would lead to Robin killing BOTH Adam and Amelia, so that’s a possibility as well. Or perhaps it’s the one that played out, and paper would have simply been Adam leaving Amelia in a more civilized (or rather, less murderous) way.
In terms of Robin, I feel like we cannot trust anything she says that is not verified by another narrator, like Sam or Adam. With how fervently she believes that Henry killed her, it reminds me of how strongly she also believed he was a terrible person (which we found out was a lie through Sam).
One more question– WHO DID ROBIN CHEAT ON ADAM WITH? I feel like it’s implied to be Amelia, as Robin’s “friend from work”, but the possibility of something more than platonic is not referenced or reflected upon by Amelia at any point in the book. There are a lot of loose ends neatly tied up, and then some left hanging and I NEED ANSWERS!
Oh, rock=stone=sapphire. Thank you – that does make sense!
I agree that Robin isn’t in any way a reliable narrator. But I don’t think I trust Adam either. We are meant to empathize with his face blindness, and I do, but the book does suggest that he remembers being at the chapel and doesn’t say anything to Amelia. Did he know he was bringing Amelia to Robin like a mouse to a cat? Then there is the backstory about Amelia and Adam and the car accident and Adam letting Amelia be blamed for his mother’s death, so Adam’s not truthful either.
Oh, and one more thing about Sam. When Sam learns that Adam and Robin are back together he drives to Scotland to tell Henry. So either Henry hired him (to keep an eye on his unstable daughter) and then Robin continued paying Sam, or maybe Robin hired Sam pretending to be Henry.
Did we read that Robin cheated on Adam? I thought it was Adam that said his wife was also a cheater, meaning Amelia. And I was thinking Amelia “cheated” on Robin, her friend, by sleeping with her husband.
Hi Cheri,
That is how I interpreted it. I thought he said both he and Amelia cheated and I assumed that he meant he betrayed Robin and that Amelia betrayed her friendship with Robin.
Amelia cheated by cheating with Adam, her friend’s husband.
I dont think Robin cheated. Adam said Amelia slept with someone she shouldn’t have (which was Adam).
I agree!
I need to mention something that is bugging me. In the anniversary letter for Steel, it is dated 28th Feb 2019. So a year before all this happens. On page 254, Robin mentions that Amelia “was always reading magazines on her lunch break – never books – and liked to enter all the competitions….That’s how I knew she’d never turn down a free weekend away. It was almost too easy to get you to come here.” How could Robin know this a year before???? Seems like a miss on the author”s/editor’s part?
She worked with amelia for a long time, so she knew she would be entering this type of raffle
i think it was mentioned a couple time that the ring was too tight on Amelia’s finger and when robin tried to remove the ring ( when she killed her ) the ring was stuck and wouldn’t come . I think that is why she eventually removed Amelia’s finger with the ring
Hi Nehandro! The ring! I returned the book to the library so cannot weigh in on the loose ring vs. tight ring debate. Some readers said that Amelia would twist the ring, suggesting it was loose but maybe she was twisting it because it was tight?
I thought she wanted to leave the ring because it’s the “rock” in rock, paper, scissors (and because she couldn’t bear to look at the ring anymore). And it wouldn’t come off Amelia’s finger, so she just took the whole thing.
That makes perfect sense!
Bless all of you fellow book nerds! Just finished last night. About 75% through when we realized Robin was writing the wife letters, I actually started the book again, so a few of the Q’s here I was able to answer with a deeper read once I knew what to look for. But most of the Q’s remain unanswered.
1. I think the purpose of Adam’s face blindness was it allowed him to avoid anyone knowing he killed his mother as since he reasonably couldn’t ID Amelia, she wasn’t forced to say he did it. It allowed both of them to go free. Then allowed her to come back into his life as an adult. It really had nothing to do with Robin or the affair in my opinion.
2. Sam was paid by Henry until he died, then Robin took over which is why the emails from Henry changed tone + focused on the dog + decor. Payments stopped when Robin was back with Adam.
3. The only value I can see for October is confusion/plot diversity but not part of a big reveal. The R name makes you think she’s Robin. The pretty friend of Adam’s creates cracks in the marriage. Her death halts production on RPS becoming a film so his dream stalls again. Robin killing her doesn’t really make sense to me… she’d decided she was nice, not a threat, and really seemed to want Adam’s career to succeed so the motive doesn’t really seem to be there to me?
The best aha/idea that came out of reading all of your comments here is that MAYBE Robin wanted to pin Amelia’s death on Henry if anyone came looking… I mean if Henry was the killer of her mom then that was the truth when she first chiseled the tombstone. To update it… would only make sense it was about Amelia. Though also how does a dead man kill a woman then die and someone puts the women’s finger (presumably previously buried) on top of his grave? It’s a big stretch. Someone had to know Henry killed her, find the finger, and set that up. Maybe worth it to have someone to pin Amelia’s death on if anyone comes looking… and MAYBE Robin thought when she stopped paying Sam he might in fact come looking? But certainly not a smooth or logical answer.
(Btw for those who read via audio I’m not sure how it was verbally said, but in the book often Robin in her letters wrote a word/few words then crossed them out and rewrote. So the tombstone now had “father” crossed out and “killer” written above it.)
So I feel like overall we really don’t know about Henry or Robin. We get Adam and Amelia’s stories, lies, motivations. But we are left unsure if Henry was awful or kind, if Robin was a victim or crazy. In some stories I’m okay with a question if the question is clear. If it’s meant to be left up to the reader to play out two options, to decide what they think. But unfortunately I don’t feel that was the case here. It feels like the editors and early readers the author shared the manuscript with missed some major holes that at least this little gathering of us all shared that left us unsatisfied with what was in other ways a good book.
Hilary, thanks so much. So sorry it took me a day to approve this amazing comment, but I have been stuck in the Massachusetts Bomb Cyclone and just got power and internet back!!!
These are such amazing insights and I really appreciate you addressing so many of our questions. I have said this before in MANY recent spoiler posts, but I feel there is a new trend in thrillers of an uncertain/unresolved ending and I am really not a fan.
Amelia mentions a few times that Adam’s face in the chapel mirrors looks like he is smiling? What do you think that was about?
Ooh, interesting. I mean, some people seem to think that Adam DID know where he was (remember the squeaky step) so maybe he knew what was going on? I don’t know. That’s another weird detail that raises unanswered questions.
When I read over the squeaky step scenario it seemed he learned to avoid it just in the moment after noticing it the first day they arrived. Not that he was there before.
Thanks, Katie! That makes a lot more sense!
But he also knew right where the broom and dust pan were in the kitchen too
Hmmm… interesting!!
I just read this book recently… my feeling about October is that she was just thrown in there to make us think Adam had cheated on Amelia with October. When in reality, Amelia was the “other woman” when he was married to Robin and that is the cheating he is referring to.
That makes a lot of sense!
Does anyone have thoughts about the baby food Robin buys? Was that for the bunny or did I just miss an explanation? I don’t get it.
I think so???? Does anyone have an alternate theory?
I think the rock (ring), paper (paper crane) and scissors left on the gravestone was so clever. And such a twisted way to tie it all together.
I also think this book could be interpreted so many different ways and that’s one of the things that makes it so good and creepy and keeps you guessing and thinking about it well after it’s done. We are all here reading more insights and getting other ideas. So that says something about it. 😁
Hi Andi! I agree that the Rock Paper Scissors theme was a good one – it also tied in nicely to the wedding anniversary gifts, which are paper, etc.