A thrilling, terrifyingly brilliant story. I cannot say it was unputdownable because at times I had become so intensely involved in the narrative that I was forced to put the book down, to regain my equilibrium and breathe again. Within a few pages I knew that this was going to warrant a five star review.
Set in a rural Somerset liberal school, it immediately calls into question our own hitherto possibly unperceived prejudice on so many levels. It puts so many facets of life and living under the magnifying glass. It shouts of racism and bias, of prejudice, of courage, of love. Encompassing modern technology, it emphasises the cold horror of evil manipulation and radicalisation and the vulnerability of our young people, but above all it highlights the courage of the students and their teaching staff. As the story weaves in and out of the rehearsal for Macbeth, the bone-chilling words of Shakespeare drive home the horror of the three hours in which they are all entrapped.
Rarely do we read a book where so many of the characters come so alive. We agonise with the parents and police staff but our hearts and minds take a hammering when we come face to face with the horrors experienced by the child immigrants Rafi and Basi.
Three Hours is an engrossing, traumatic story with many twists, turns and surprises. I finished it two days ago but it is still occupying my mind. I have already recommended it to friends and family for pre-order.
I have no hesitation in recommending and awarding Three Hours the maximum stars available. I have no doubt that it will prove to be a benchmark for the thriller/suspense/whodunit/whydunit of 2020.

I was on edge throughout this book! Felt exhausted by the end of it! But couldn’t put it down! Thought provoking and disturbing! But! Also wonderful tales of human decency and bravery under extreme danger!

This is excellent! A thriller with real depth and emotion. I couldn't put it down. It's the story of a school held hostage, told from multiple points of view. It's cleverly done, and the characters are very believable. I loved the backdrop of Macbeth, seeing concepts in the play threaded through the story. Highly recommend.

What a fantastic book! I was forced to read it over three days, but would rather have read it in one long sitting as it completely gripped me from the first, brilliant page. It is a great story, which will linger in my mind for a long time. It is a story about a school, children and their parents, tolerance and intolerance, evil and prejudice, but above all, it is a story about love. I couldn't recommend it more highly, and would give it more stars if I could!

This is the best thing I’ve read in ages. I absolutely raced through it, hooked on every word. So addictive, so thought-provoking. Wonderful, I’ve recommended it to all types of people of all different reading tastes!

Three Hours

I’ve really enjoyed Rosamund Lupton’s previous books so I was excited to be able to read her latest book after being sent a copy by #netgalley and #penguinbooksuk in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The story is set in rural Somerset where a school comes under siege. Three Hours is the time the siege takes to unravel whilst following the experiences of a number of people living through it including the headmaster, a number of pupils who are trapped, the senior police officer trying to manage the situation and a parent.

This is a beautifully written book as I’ve come to expect from Rosamund Lutpon’s previous books. The book manages to deal with a very harrowing experience in a sensitive way by focusing on the good in the people involved and their relationships with each other rather than on the actual ‘terrorists’. There are parts nearer the end where I thought it got a bit obviously political but this is only a small part of the overall story.

To me this book isn’t really a thriller but rather a book will stay with you and make you think about your view of the World and how anything can happen to anyone anywhere but the good in people will always survive.

A Somerset school is under siege, it has been taken over by armed gunmen who have shot the headmaster Mathew Marr. Pupils at the school have barricaded themselves in their classrooms. There has been a snow storm and the police and emergency services are struggling to attend and are trying to find out who has a grudge against the school. Is it a disgruntled ex employee or pupil?

Although the timeline for this story is short, it delivers a chilling and mesmerising read. A tale of courage in adversity. Loved how the drama teacher encourages the pupils to rehearse their play Macbet, to keep their minds off this dangerous situations.

This story is fast paced and terrifying at times, I held my breath scared to read on!! I think this book is hard hitting as we have all read in the news about shootings happening in schools so I can definitely relate to it.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.

This book gripped me from the very beginning. One of the best books I have read this year - I devoured it in a day (which is no mean feat with a small baby!)

I loved Sister so was so excited to see Three Hours! Rosamund has such a beautiful way of storytelling, she drags you into her books and I found myself quite happy to stay there.
This book is made more terrifying because scenes like this happen on a daily basis throughout the world. I can’t say I was a big fan of any of the characters but they’re all written brilliantly. Honestly I’m in shock at Three Hours, it’s the kind of haunting book that will stay with you forever.

Thank you to netgalley.co.uk for giving me a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest and fair review.

I was happy to receive this book. A few people had recommended Lupton's previous book, Sister, to me which I enjoyed. I thought it was well written, and I'm so glad this book did not let me down either.

Three Hours is the story of a school shooting; this is something I feel fortunate not to have experienced as I live in the United Kingdom. However, it is something that I see all the time on the news. Lupton did a great job humanising these characters as it's something in which I have little direct experience. While reading this book, I felt like I got more of an understanding behind the tragedies and why these shootings may happen in school across America.

This novel was a brilliantly written book which evoked my emotions; I could not put this down. I read it in about two sittings. I am so glad I requested this book. If you enjoyed Sister, I think you will love this book.

Columbine, Dunblane, Virginia Tech - choose any one - a parents/teachers/pupils nightmare- is it really happening? How do our characters react ?

It all unfolds in a tense dramatic book that will leave you with nightmares!

I've read a few Rosamund Lupton books, and I've really enjoyed them. She has the right kind of Thriller/mystery aspect that just keeps you hooked. So when I was asked if I would be interested in reading a proof copy of her new book 'Three Hours' and reviewing it, of course I said "YES"
Rosamund Lupton has done it again, she’s pulled me in with another of her thrilling stories.
I started reading this book just after lunch, next thing I know its 7:30pm and my husband’s wondering where his tea is!!
I was hooked from the very first paragraph. Rosamund Luptons use of language forms such a strong descriptive start to the story that you just flow through the rest so easily.
It’s hard to describe exactly what 'Three hours' is, as it is so many things. The blurb puts it as a “tale told from the point of view of people at the heart of a school under siege” I suppose that is it in a nutshell but it doesn’t even begin to describe the heart and emotion contained within, or even prepare you for the emotional journey that you’ll go on with them.
It’s also hard to describe without giving too much away, as the story unfolds in such a way that after each chapter you realise that something much bigger is at play here.
Basically I loved it, in case you hadn’t guessed. It is just so well written and thought out. I should imagine that it’s hard to write about this subject and keep a balance within the boundaries of either over glamourising or trivialising things for entertainment value. So my hat goes off to Rosamund Lupton, for not only keeping the perfect balance but writing the characters in such a way they came to life in front of you and you could empathise with every one.
It’s down for a release in January 2020, and I just can’t wait for others to read it, as there is so much about it I want to discuss

As an educator, this is a story of horror. As a mother it's a story of fear. The memories of Basi and Rafi, who escaped Syria and faced a journey of hell on earth, come crashing up against the radicalism imbued by two teens in the West. Everyone in this story is looking for a better life; everyone in the story has defined it differently.
The human angst that invades all of us - the internal voices casting doubt on our looks, intelligence, fears and abilities - threads through the story and helping us understand the why, even if we could never agree with the how.
By setting it in a rural English school, it immediately questions the reader's prejudice. Surely there's NO way a school in Britain could be involved in a shooting. After all, we learned from Dunblane. However, Dunblane was a generation ago, and the landscape had changed dramatically.
This is a story of prejudice, bias, racism, radicalism, technology and manipulation. Above all, it's a story of fear and love. The fear of a parent, as they stand helplessly to one side as their children navigate those teen years. Fear of teenagers, for whom every emotion is heightened. But also love. Love which allows a person to be their flawed self and still accepted. The love which makes people act in superhuman ways. The question is: can love triumph? Read Three Hours to find out.

Wow what a thought provoking novel three hours turned out to be, it is a story based in a school in Somerset which becomes the backdrop for a nightmare that no one wants to happen at any school, an armed siege by masked intruders, The teachers and pupils have to be brave and resourceful to survive long enough for the police to work out who is behind the terror and find a way to bring it to an end.

I found when I was reading this it really made me think about how easy this could happen in a world where anything can be found and bought on the internet and how our young generations minds are being warped by hatred and racism that they see and hear through the web and media and this book will stay with me for a long time, all I can say is It’s a scary world we now find ourselves living in.

Wow ! This had me on the edge of my seat and demanded to be read in one sitting. The tense, fast moving plot had plenty of twists and turns. The characters were well portrayed and I felt very involved in the siege and wondering how I would react in such a situation. Highly recommended.

A school in Somerset, fierce blizzard and assailants. This scenario should have been filled to the brim with tension and menace but I just didn’t feel anything like that at all! The start was intriguing and the last part too but the middle just sort of plodded along, everyone calm and collected, no hysterics. Bit of a coincidence too that most of the mobile phones ran out of charge at the same time! It was a tad confusing with so many characters “speaking”. Considering how often there are school shootings, it was a brave subject to tackle. The book was well written of course, it’s just I didn’t find it at all frightening, when I should have done, given what had happened.

Wow, what a fabulous read.
Three hours to save the pupils in a liberal school in Somerset.
Lots of great characters but especially two refugees who have been rescued and are just beginning to have a safe life. The refugees are Rafi and Basi who have witnessed terrible events and have learned to be survivors. I really wish that I had had the time to read this in one sitting - it was that good.

This was not a comfortable read. The school setting, children in peril, Islamaphobia and Trump's tweets are too close to home. I did speed through the book - it does after all cover a three hour time frame, most of which I spent squirming in my seat.

There is a level of chaos in the story which one would expect in the fraught situation, however I did come away with questions. Who was the third man? Why? Wouldn't the mobile and wifi be blocked to prevent news leaking in and out of the hostage site?

Saying that if you fancy a thriller set in Somerset featuring disenchanted teenagers this is the book for you. I am off the read Margaret Atwood's 'The Testaments' which will probably make me squirm even more

"And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself" (Rumi 1207-1273)

Rosamund Lupton begins this superb novel that could have 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.

Rafi's girlfriend, Hannah, does the best she can to care for Matthew, trapped with other students in the library. Jacintha, the English teacher is reading poetry with her class in her efforts to cope with the unfolding tragedy. The local police officer is shot at, forced to take cover at the gatehouse. Thinking his brother is safe, Rafi returns to danger to ensure Hannah too is safe. The pottery room, located in the woods, is the most vulnerable place, a gunman outside pointing his gun at the class. In the most secure place, the theatre, the drama teacher, Daphne, locks in her students and presides over the dress rehearsal of Macbeth in her fight for a degree of normalcy, a play that drips with echoes of their own current deadly realities. Macbeth, with its witches, murder of the innocents, death, tyranny and terror, where Birnam wood marches to Dunsinane. Anguished parents pray for their children, desperate for news, whilst some, who should know better, fan the flames of Islamaphobia.

In a bone chillingly atmospheric narrative that goes back and forth in time, Lupton illuminates the longest, darkest, three hours of the soul, where a school defined by the most liberal and tolerant of values is seen as the devil incarnate by those whose hearts burn with a malignant, sick hatred, where the mass killing of innocent children is viewed as acceptable collateral with their bombs in fairytales. Shot throughout the most terrifying of scenarios is hope, light, and solidarity, as people discover what they are willing to die for, what they are made of, and who they truly are. As Matthew Marr states, in the end it is all about love, it is all that matters. For example, the Deputy Head, Neil Forbright, afflicted with depression, taking heroic actions without any thought to his own safety and the incomparable Rafi, fighting his own demons to save those he loves. This is an unbelievably amazing and brilliant read, traumatic, so engrossing, unforgettable, and intense. Cannot recommend this highly enough. Thanks to Penguin UK for an ARC.

What a totally absorbing, amazing and powerful read this is and written with such feeling and emotion it made me lose myself in the story completely finding it hard when I put the book down looked around at my surroundings realising that I wasn’t actually witnessing the terrible events that were being played out, yet in the midst of all that horror there was love, bravery and hope.
It’s an extraordinary book and I had expected it to be good by the reviews it was getting but nowhere as good as turned out to be and it’s also as scary as hell as it feels so real !!
When I was reading I was completely engrossed and when I stopped reading all I could do was to think about the book it really is that damn good.
It’s not an easy subject at all bringing out lots of emotions both of horror and fear but with love at its heart ....heartbreaking at times (it made me cry) but a wonderful read beautifully written and truly a book not to be missed.
Many many thanks to Rosamund Lupton for a stunning novel I will never forget.
My thanks also to NetGalley and Penguin Books UK, Viking for giving me the chance to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.