Rock Paper Scissors Audiobook

Snow piles against the door of a converted chapel deep in the Scottish Highlands, the last road out already erased under white, while inside a couple who barely speak anymore settle in for a weekend that will not go the way either of them planned. This is the Rock Paper Scissors audiobook, from one listener to another. That icy, cut-off hush is where Alice Feeney’s Rock Paper Scissors lives, and on audio the chill seems to seep straight through your headphones. It makes for a wonderfully twisty listen.

A crumbling marriage and a chapel in the middle of nowhere

Adam and Amelia Wright have been together long enough that the cracks show. He’s a screenwriter buried in his own head; she works at a dog shelter and keeps a list of reasons she still loves him, one per year. When they win a weekend away at a converted chapel deep in the Scottish Highlands, it reads like a last-ditch patch job on a marriage that’s mostly held together with habit and silence. Then the snow starts falling, the road out disappears, and the house itself seems to know things about them that it shouldn’t.

What makes Adam such an unsettling narrator is his face blindness — prosopagnosia. He literally cannot recognize faces, including his wife’s. Feeney does something clever with that, and it’s the kind of premise that makes you lean in without her having to spell out why.

Two narrators, and why the pairing matters here

The audiobook is read by Richard Armitage and Stephanie Racine, and the dual casting isn’t just decoration. Armitage handles Adam with this weary, clipped interiority — a man narrating his own life from behind glass. Racine gives Amelia warmth and a needling edge that made me trust her right up until I didn’t. When a story is built on two people remembering the same marriage very differently, having two actual voices carry it does half the work. The full runtime is 10 hours and 38 minutes, which felt about right — long enough to sink in, short enough that I finished it across a weekend of walks and laundry.

Armitage in particular could narrate a takeout menu and I’d subscribe. If you’ve ever been talked into an audiobook purely for the reader, this is that book.

The twists: earned, not cheap

I won’t touch the plot mechanics, because ruining a Feeney book should be a minor crime. What I’ll say is that she plants things early and lets them sit, so when the floor drops out you feel a little foolish for not seeing it. It reminded me of the gut-punch structure of Gone Girl, where the story you think you’re hearing quietly rearranges itself. If you liked how Behind Closed Doors makes a marriage feel like a locked room, you’ll click with the claustrophobia here — except swap the tidy suburban house for a freezing chapel and a whiteout.

Book details at a glance

Would I hand it to a friend?

Yes, with a caveat: go in cold. Don’t read the blurbs, don’t peek at reviews that overshare, just press play and let the snow pile up. It’s not flawless — a couple of the reveals ask you to be very forgiving — but the audio format papers over any wobble because you’re too busy being led by two voices you want to believe. If your comfort zone is twisty domestic suspense like The Couple Next Door, this belongs on your list. I finished it, sat in the car for a minute, and immediately texted a friend “okay you HAVE to.”

So — did you guess the big turn before it landed, or did it get you clean? And are you team Adam or team Amelia by the end? Tell me I’m not the only one who rewound a chapter just to catch what I missed.