Three Hours: The Top Ten Sunday Times Bestseller

Product Information

I read Three Hours in two days, in awe. It's breathtaking. A modern rumination on the issues that divide 21st century life, a celebration of refugees, of mental health, of love and hope and bravery. I loved it more than I can say' -- Gillian McAllister Three Hours is Rosamund Lupton's best book yet, and that is high praise. A monster story for our fractious historical moment -- the age of the internet and of Columbine, of terror and mass migration -- when the monsters often look an awful lot like our own children. Chilling, suspenseful, humane, and brave William Landay But as a thriller it is as said tense, nail bitingly so and the sense of mixed claustrophobia with terror that the hostages feel is very real and very raw and powerfully described There was an ongoing theme of a ‘mystery’ gunman and after reading the ending 4 times I cant seem to figure out who it was or if we were ever actually told who it was, anyone who has read it and worked it out please let me know A BEST BOOK OF 2020 IN THE SUNDAY TIMES, TIMES, GUARDIAN, MAIL, MIRROR, LITERARY REVIEW, STYLIST, RED AND GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

This novel's greatest strength is its moving depiction of the anguishes of parenthood and the wild possibilities of first love * The Times *Beautifully written, emotionally note-perfect and nail-bitingly tense. It's BRILLIANT -- Tammy Cohen

Too much trauma to take on board? Perhaps, but Three Hours is tightly and elegantly written, immensely gripping and carries us along with unstoppable verve. Three Hours is one of the most exhilarating reading experiences I've ever had. Rosamund Lupton takes a dark, painful subject and turns it into a novel full of hope and compassion. An amazing achievement. -- Emma HealeyThree Hoursis a brilliant novel - moving, relevant and honest. Rosamund Lupton takes us through the story of a siege in an English school, building on the tension and our emotions as the story speeds to its conclusion. She handles difficult subjects with sensitivity and intelligence, focusing on the heroism of the individual. An exceptional and heartbreaking read -- Jenny Quintana It's a brave and touchy topic to write about, especially considering the stories parallels to many events that have truly happened. The Columbine High School shootings come to mind, which adds an urgency to the narrative. Yes, it's fiction, but you keep reminding yourself that this could be happening for real. Because it has happened before. The ‘police procedural’ side of things did not daunt the reader and held some fascinating insights into what happens in these situations Three Hours is narrated in 10-minute increments throughout this terrifying snowy morning (anyone with a schoolchild might find it unbearable, and a manipulative, sentimental quality does lurk within) starting at 9.16am when the headmaster is shot in the head. The ends are tied up a little too hastily and neatly, with some frustratingly unanswered questions, and the mystery of a third terrorist serves to muddy the waters.

Rosamund Lupton begins this superb novel that could have been ripped from our troubled world's recent news headlines, with the above quote, for in the midst of the nightmare that descends on a rural Somerset school on a cold, dark and snowy November morning, teachers and children's lives are to be changed forever. Their courage, love, fortitude and sense of community rises to the surface as their innocence is shattered in the face of the worst of people riddled with the cancer of an all consuming hatred. Lupton drops the reader right slap bang into the middle of the terror of the school taken over by well armed gunmen, shooting the kind and compassionate Head, Matthew Marr, who is dragged into the library by students. It is the brave Rafi Burkhani, suffering PTSD, a casualty of war torn Syria, who recognises a small explosion in the wood as a bomb, informing the Head, driven by his love of his younger, emotionally damaged brother, Basi, and his need to save him and others. It's beautifully, elegantly written, SO gripping, intelligent, timely, affecting and moving Marian Keyes It's beautifully, elegantly written, SO gripping, intelligent, timely, affecting and moving' MARIAN KEYES Some of the ends are tied up a little too hastily and the denouement threatens to collapse under the weight of complicated plotting, but Three Hours is so immensely gripping that it carries you along with unstoppable verve. Yes the story is ripped straight from a headline you hope never to see again. This has been done before you may say. No. Not like this. Not with this immersive level of quality in the prose, in the characters, in the overall impact of it. I cried for our society when I was done, I also believed in it.An incredible, unbelievably powerful book... I forgot how to breathe as it explored what it means to be human - for better or for worse. It's taut, it's tight, it's appalling, it's uplifting, it's extraordinary. Simply stunning Dinah Jefferies I read this book in one sitting I could not put it down. So beautifully written, the courage, love, compassion, vulnerability and sense of community in this book. It will be one of my favorite reads of this year. Lupton writes with sensibility and from a place of compassion. We witness the story from different viewpoints and experience the trauma from all possible angles: we meet the students that are trying to rehearse for their performance of Macbeth, we learn what it is like for the refugee brothers Rafi and Basi from Syria, we see the police trying to get on top of the situation while mother Beth just wants any information on her son she can get.

Keep those tissues at the ready, because you are going to need them – Three Hours was a tear-jerker, but Rosamund Lupton handled a delicate topic with sensitivity and integrity. There were some upsetting scenes, but they were non-graphic and not just for the sake of gratuitous violence. The plot was character-driven, a psychological study unfolding through the eyes of a wide range of characters affected by the events – students, teachers, parents, and police. In Three Hours, a mother who is desperate to know whether her son is safe remembers feeling jealous of his potential girlfriends the day before: “She’d had no idea then of the love she had for Jamie, had assumed it was possessive, grasping, but the make-up of her love is not like that at all.” Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton, published by Viking Extraordinary… Three Hours is much more than a nail-biting thriller; it is a disquisition on values: of love and hate, of sacrifice for others, of risk-taking and courage’ The Times It’s very hard for a book topic such as this to not have an emotional impact. As a mother of school-age children, I did find myself holding my breath in several parts. It was tense, at times almost unbearably so. I feared for the safety of so many of the characters.Pupils and teachers barricade themselves into classrooms, the library, the theatre. The headmaster lies wounded in the library, unable to help his trapped students and staff. Outside, a police psychiatrist must identify the gunmen, while parents gather desperate for news. In rural Somerset in the middle of a blizzard, the unthinkable happens: a school is under siege. From the wounded headmaster in the library, unable to help his trapped pupils and staff, to teenage Hannah in love for the first time, to the parents gathering desperate for news, to the 16 year old Syrian refugee trying to rescue his little brother, to the police psychologist who must identify the gunmen, to the students taking refuge in the school theatre, all experience the most intense hours of their lives, where evil and terror are met by courage, love and redemption. I've just finished reading this. Exceptional - so well planned and written. I'm also in awe of Rosamund Lupton -- Sarah Edghill