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Rosamund Lupton: Three Hours review - gripping thriller with a Macbeth twist | reviews, news & interviews

Rosamund lupton: three hours review - gripping thriller with a macbeth twist, a progressive school is under attack in somerset: will the children survive.

This is not a drill. Lock down, evacuation. An active school shooter is on the loose, actually more than one: two or three men in balaclavas with automatic shotguns. But this isn’t a high school or college in the USA – it’s in Somerset, England. A progressive co-ed school, founded in the 1920s, known for its liberal values, its lack of religious affiliation and its privileged pupils. A haven of political correctness. Who would want to attack it?

Rosamund Lupton writes bestselling, stylish thrillers and this, her fourth, is outstandingly suspenseful and fast-paced, though its denouement threatens to collapse under the weight of over-complicated plotting. You do feel sometimes that  there’s a little too much going on: hate crime, white supremacy, encryption, Syria, radicalisation, though as in her previous books, Three Hours is centred around family relationships, as well as the redemptive power of teenage love.

In The Quality of Silence and Afterwards , which features an arson attack on a private school in Chiswick (traumatic school events seem to be a stock in trade), it’s primarily the bond between a mother and child that’s explored. In Sister , her bestselling first novel, it’s the bond between siblings. All these and more, within a much larger cast of characters, feature in Three Hours.

Lupton is skilled at entering a child’s mind, as well as a parent’s, and at showing how crisis and danger can change you and allow you to discover aspects of yourself and your child that you didn’t know were there. In Three Hours , a mother who's desperate to know if 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.”

Instead, she accepts him as he is – shy, lonely, unconfident. And in Afterwards , a mother, previously infuriated at her daughter for not working hard at school or caring about getting into university, can, under terrible pressure, discover her other, valuable qualities and see her as an independent being. In The Quality of Silence , a mother realises that pleading with her ten-year-old deaf child to “use her mouth voice” is misguided – sign language, her laptop and social media answer her real needs. Lupton herself has been partially deaf since childhood.

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.

The narrative is so overwhelmingly tense that the end can’t help but be a bit disappointing. We gradually learn who the attackers are – the suspense is extraordinarily powerful – against a backdrop of Twitter and texting and a production of Macbeth that some terrified students, locked in the theatre, valiantly continue to rehearse. Parallels between the play and the attacks are, perhaps, a bit far-fetched but mainly she pulls it off, and it's crucial to the final twist (literary references are another Lupton speciality). “Rafi told her once that for him it isn’t Macbeth and Lady Macbeth who are the frightening characters, but First Murderer, Second Murderer, Third Murderer, men without names; unknown killers in the darkness.”

Rafi and Basi, Syrian refugees, are central: it’s Rafi, aged 16, who spots the first bomb (merely a taster of the horrors to come) and who, with remarkable sangfroid, tells the headmaster to evacuate the junior school. Rafi brought Basi, his eight-year-old brother, from Syria after most of their family was killed, bearing his father’s copy of Macbeth (his father would quote from it, seeing Syria as a “suffering country under a hand accursed”).

Two years later both boys have bad PTSD but the head – an almost too selfless man who rescued the brothers from a camp in Dunkirk – believes Rafi in the face of sceptical colleagues. Snow is a trigger for Basi, as well as the sea, which compromises his safety during the school evacuation, and there are many flashbacks to their awful journey.

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 by Rosamund Lupton (Viking, £14.99)

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Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton

By: Author Jen - MMB Book Blog

Posted on Published: 4 November 2021  - Last updated: 4 March 2024

Three Hours is a thriller novel by Rosmund Lupton, published in 2020.

Three Hours was The Times Thriller of Year, shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime novel of the year and a best book of 2020 in The Guardian , amongst many more.

Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton: Plot

In rural Somerset, in the middle of a blizzard, a school is under siege. Teachers are desperately trying to protect their students while parents are frantically trying to contact their loved ones. Pupils and teachers are trapped in classrooms while their headmaster lies wounded in the library, unable to protect his beloved students.

Meanwhile, a police psychiatrist must identify the gunmen. In three intense hours, they all must find the courage to stand up to evil and save the people they love.

Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton: My Opinion

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.

Despite the obvious tension, it was also tender in places and I found it heart wrenching reading about the fear of the children and the bravery of those trying to help. It perfectly displayed people’s capacity for good as well as bad.

There were so many brilliant things about the book but I did find it a bit slow in places. It seems so unlikely considering how tense some scenes were but I felt certain sections dragged on a bit. I predicted some of it which was a bit disappointing, although I admit there’s a lot more to the story than finding the culprit.

There were so many characters and so many different points of view that there wasn’t really time for character development. It was also slightly unrealistic in places and I could really have done without the tenuous links to Macbeth.

Having said that, it did keep me reading until the end and I did want to find out what happened to everyone. The pace picked up towards the end and all loose ends were tied up.

Overall I’d say I liked it, but perhaps not as much as I’d hoped.

How many pages does Three Hours have?

Three Hours has 306 pages.

When was Three Hours released?

Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton was published on 6th January 2020.

Has Rosamund Lupton written any other novels?

Rosamund Lupton has also written:

• The Quality of Silence

What should I read after Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton?

If you’re looking for books with the same level of dramatic tension, you may also enjoy Hostage by Clare Mackintosh and Falling by TJ Newman .

Related Book Lists

• Lisa Jewell Books in Order
• Clare Mackintosh Books in Order

‘Three Hours’ by Rosamund Lupton is a truly gripping read

L ike many others, lockdown has given me a newfound freedom to sit down and get back into reading. Whilst searching for new reads, I found a book which I would highly recommend for anyone in the coming weeks.

Three Hours (2020) is a Top Ten Sunday Times bestseller by Rosamund Lupton, a Cambridge University graduate. The action thriller, set in rural Somerset, deals with the sensitive theme of a school being held hostage by two unidentified gunmen during a blizzard. The book opens with the news that the headmaster has been shot and then the actions that follow all take place in a mere 180 minutes. This means that the novel is attractively very fast-paced and full of drama; unlike many books nowadays which spend excessive lengths of time setting the scene before finally launching into the action.

However, what is unique about  Three Hours is that it does not simply explore the tense action side of the siege. Instead, it allows us to simultaneously follow the lives and emotions of a range of notable characters as we witness the hectic events outside the school (with the police, media and frantic parents) grow bigger whilst the events inside the school feel increasingly further away.

With a school setting, the novel is so familiar yet unfamiliar, imaginable yet unimaginable and this makes it truly gripping.

We follow Rafi, a brave Muslim teenager from Syria with severe PTSD, Daphne, a teacher leading a school play rehearsal in the assembly hall, Rose, a forensic psychologist who’s job is to find out the identities and motivations of the two gunmen, and Beth, the classic helicopter mum concerned for her missing child Jamie (among others). All characters are intrinsically linked by the shocking events at the school and offer various fascinating perspectives on the situation.

The novel strikingly examines how we as humans may deal with such extreme scenarios. It explores the contemporary issues of radicalisation, terrorism, racism, the response of the emergency services and the ambiguous role of teachers and students embodying leadership in such times.

Without revealing too much, my favourite parts of the book are those moments of hope where the students and teachers work together. The enormous bravery and strength they demonstrate against the gunmen is inspiring and allows us to question how we would act, should something equally horrifying ever happen to us. With a school setting, the novel is so familiar yet unfamiliar, imaginable yet unimaginable and this makes it truly gripping.

Ultimately, in a world of great evil, the book reminds us of the powerful force of love and how it manifests in life or death situations

Interestingly, Lupton also set the book in the UK, not the USA, which arguably sheds light on how, although many of us may associate such horrific school shootings with North America due to its intense media coverage, it is by no means extinct in this country. Arguably this makes the event feel even more personal and realistic, allowing for a more powerful read. For instance, the description of the school felt so similar to my former one with hockey pitches and separate Junior and Senior Schools, which is a startling fact to face.

Ultimately, in a world of great evil, the book reminds us of the powerful force of love and how it manifests in life or death situations, along with the insatiable urge to save those you love. Love is shown to be an overpowering, unconditional force, especially in such extreme moments. Likewise, so many values such as sacrifice, courage, risk-taking, anger, confusion and hatred are explored and make for a thrilling novel.

Overall, I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone seeking a quick yet exciting read. It uniquely mixes genres such as mystery, action and crime yet effectively balances these with more sensitive, specific details, offering us a deeper story. I learnt so much from the experience and I did not expect to go on such a journey of emotions in only 300 pages, however this experience goes to show that you really should never judge a book before you try it.

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The Best Fiction Books » Thrillers (Books)

Three hours, by rosamund lupton, recommendations from our site.

“Three Hours is set in a private school in the depths of Somerset…She’s using the well-known device of a time limit—in this case, a bomb that’s going to go off creates enormous tension—but she does something very clever with it…It’s multiple stories, which appeals to me. We have the stories of lots of different students within the school, as well as the head teacher, who is very badly injured right at the beginning. One group is in the middle of a Macbeth rehearsal when they get the alert, and the school is locked down. They don’t know where the gunmen are, and where the bomb might be.” Read more...

The Best Psychological Thrillers

J.S. Monroe , Thriller and Crime Writer

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Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton review – 180 nail-biting minutes

The tension of a school siege is mingled with a meditation on the bonds of friendship

R osamund Lupton’s new novel opens on a “moment of stillness; as if time itself is waiting, can no longer be measured”. This infinitesimal pause is followed by a single gunshot, a bullet moving “faster than sound”, which doubles as the crack of a starter pistol – propelling us into a nail-biting three hours (“180 minutes, 10,800 seconds”) during which the teachers and students at a school in a remote part of Somerset are held hostage by two unidentified gunmen. The book urges us to follow a multitude of stories “playing out … simultaneously, connected by time and place”.

The most compelling narrative thread leads to Rafi, a PTSD-stricken teenager who single-handedly shepherded his eight-year-old brother Basi out of Syria, and is the first to suspect that the loud bang in the woods signals an imminent attack, from which he must now race to save his brother again. Meanwhile his girlfriend Hannah is trapped in the library desperately trying to keep the wounded headmaster alive. Then there’s Beth, a helicopter mum frantic with worry about her son Jamie, somewhere in the school but not responding to her texts or calls; Camille, a teacher sheltering her seven-year-old charges in a dangerously exposed pottery studio (“the glass windows turned into weapons”); the courageous deputy head Neil; and Detective Inspector Rose Polstein, a pregnant forensic psychologist tasked with putting together a picture of the monster capable of planning such a horrific attack.

Three Hours intersperses scenes of breath-sucking tension with stirring meditations on human nature. It’s no coincidence that Rafi smuggled a dog-eared copy of Macbeth out of Syria, or that this “play about raw evil” happens to be what the drama students are rehearsing when the theatre goes into lockdown. But the message Lupton’s novel delivers is that only love can save us. “Love is the most powerful thing there is,” the headmaster tells Hannah, “the only thing that really matters.” Love is commemorated in all its forms: romantic, brotherly, maternal, familial, but most of all the bonds of friendship and community that make it possible for one person to lay down their own life for another. Three Hours is immensely satisfying as an action-driven thriller, but its real resonance lies in exploring the mysteries of human consciousness, revealing how “you don’t know a person … including yourself … until the everyday is stripped away”.

Most viewed

Three Hours

A TOP 10  SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

BEST BOOKS of 2020 in  the Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The Times, Stylist, Red, Good Housekeeping

Thriller of the month in the  Times & Sunday Times;  a  Sunday Times must read

‘Superb’ Kate Mosse ‘ASTONISHING. Powerful, terrifying, heartbreaking’ Emma Flint ‘One of the most exhilarating reading experiences I’ve ever had’ Emma Healey ‘A stunner of a book. Staggeringly good’ Jane Fallon ‘SO gripping, intelligent, timely, affecting and moving’ Marian Keyes

‘ Three Hours Intersperses scenes of breath-sucking tension with stirring meditations on human nature . . . Immensely satisfying as an action-driven thriller, but its real resonance lies in exploring the mysteries of human consciousness . . .’ Sara Collins – Guardian

‘A brilliant literary thriller…reminiscent of both Greek tragedy and Shakespeare’ – Sunday Times

‘The immediacy of Rosamund Lupton’s writing is extraordinary; she shifts from character to character so that it takes time for the full horror of the situation to unfold . . . 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, of community rather than self, of tolerance versus brainwashed extremism’ – The Times

‘A novel that you live rather than merely read’ – Telegraph

‘It’s early days but this could be one of the thrillers of the new decade. If you read only one thriller this year; make it this one: it is that good’ – Daily Mail

To find out more about Three Hours , visit the Penguin website here.

——————————————–

Three hours is 180 minutes or 10,800 seconds.

It is a morning’s lessons, a dress rehearsal of Macbeth, a snowy trek through the woods.

It is an eternity waiting for news. Or a countdown to something terrible.

It is 180 minutes to discover who you will die for and what men will kill for.

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.

‘Exceptional’ Kate Hamer ‘Propulsively plotted’ Emma Donoghue ‘Humane and brave’ William Landay ‘Incredible’ Elizabeth Brooks ‘A tour de force’ Gillian McAllister ‘Simply stunning’ Dinah Jefferies ‘Phenomenal’ Fiona Mitchell ‘Brilliant’ Jenny Quintana ‘Mind blowing’ Francesca Jakobi

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Jen Med's Book Reviews

Musings and Ramblings of a Disorganised Blogger

Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton

Today I’m sharing my thoughts on Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton which was published earlier this week. This is a very dramatic and emotional read that has been highly rated by my blogging peers so I was intrigued to see what it was all about. My thanks to publishers Penguin who supplied a copy for review via Netgalley. Here’s what it’s about:

About the Book

Three hours is 180 minutes or 10,800 seconds. It is a morning’s lessons, a dress rehearsal of Macbeth, a snowy trek through the woods. It is an eternity waiting for news. Or a countdown to something terrible. It is 180 minutes to discover who you will die for and what men will kill for. In rural Somerset in the middle of a blizzard, the unthinkable happens: a school is under siege. Told from the point of view of the people at the heart of it, 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. Available from: Amazon | Kobo | Waterstones | Googleplay | Apple Books

My Thoughts

I have ummed and ahhed about this review. Not just what I want to put in it, but whether I should write it at all. Not because I didn’t enjoy the book, because I did, and not because I don’t think that it’s beautifully and very skilfully written, because it is. I’m just not sure if I am entirely the right audience for a book which draws heavily upon the internal fears of every parent – the possibility that they may lose a child. I am not a parent. Never will be. It’s not in my genetic make up. That lack of maternal instinct has meant that I likely read this book in a very different way to most of my fellow bloggers. I read this as a voyeur first, the kind of person who might see the subject of a school siege on the news and think ‘how awful’ before moving on with my day, as opposed to those who would sit there and think ‘that could be my child’ who will have an entirely different emotional reaction to what they see, or in this case read, than I would. I have nephews and nieces and I would be devastated if anything were to happen to them, but it’s not quite the same thing. And so rather than becoming emotionally invested or immersed in this book in the way a parent would, I was an outsider looking in. And yet … Rosamund Lupton has done an absolutely stunning job here. She has created an atmosphere and a tension in this book that draws you in as a reader. Not in a necessarily ghoulish or voyeuristic way, but by giving you just enough of a bit of each of the most relevant characters to engage you. To make you care about them and their fates, be it one of the students caught up in the school, the Detective trying to get to the bottom of who is behind the siege, or the parent waiting and praying desperately to hear good news about their child. There is such dramatic tension in each page that you feel compelled to read on but not because you want to hear something awful has happened, because you are hoping it won’t. The characters in this book are diverse, a reflection of the kind of school in which the action is set. A liberal college which embraces diversity – exactly the kind of target you might expect for those who are against diversity in any form. It is a timely story, not because we are necessarily overrun with school sieges – thank god – but because of the growing sense of hatred that is prevalent in our modern society, something which is brought out in the narrative perfectly. For every act of tolerance and inclusion there is a counter, and in this case it is taking its most extreme form. The are moments of high tension, moments that will make you hold your breath and pause, waiting to see if all will be okay. There is also a strong sense of family, of faith and of hope, in spite of everything. For some, their worlds will be torn apart by those three hours, for others, it will mark a change but one which is for the better. The constant use of Macbeth throughout as a dramatic device, the play that the children are rehearsing at the time of the siege, is very clever and serves to highlight the very nature of evil and darkness, allowing the children to make sense of the carnage in their own way. The imagery is stark, putting readers at the heart of the action and letting them feel the chill of the snow as it falls all around them, adding another layer of jeopardy to an already impossible situation. The final third of the book is so tense, the pacing increasing with every page turn, that I was glued to the page to the end. I loved the characters of Rafi and Basi, how the author drew upon their backstory of fleeing Syria. It has a heavy part to play in the story, but the strength and bond between the two brothers who have already lost everything apart from each other, is both heartwarming and thought provoking, forcing you to think about what sacrifices you might make for family. Family is definitely a strong theme in this book and the fragility of those bonds, even genetic ones, are shown in dramatic style. This is a beautifully written book, rich in language and symbolism with themes of extremism, hate, racism and isolation. The styling may throw some, the narrative moving between characters without warning, capturing all of them in that brief moment in time that makes up those critical three hours. But is is an important book in that it holds up the sense of love against the feeling of hate and gives us hope that love is the stronger emotion, despite everything you might see and hear these days. So whilst my journey in reading this book may not have been the same as that which parents would take, I still recognise this book for the brilliant piece of literature that it is, one that will make you want to hold your loved ones that little bit closer.

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7 thoughts on “ three hours by rosamund lupton ”.

This does sound good, if a bit darker than I usually read. Thanks!

Like Liked by 1 person

It was a really good book. Some strong themes but handled very sensitively.

Thanks for mentioning the non-maternal side of our world here 🙂 Like you, it’s not in my genes, I’m a dog mama, thank you very much! No kids allowed! Yet I couldn’t help but turn the pages, as you said, almost like a voyeur. Then I felt, for the characters who went through so much. But surely, my emotions were different from those of a parent. As usual, amazing review x

Absolutely. I have read other reviews and a lot very much from being able to identify with the parents etc. For me I read it purely as a crime novel which worked on many levels but was clearly more deliberate and thoughtful than action packed. An interesting experiment if you like.

I really like your review – it is interesting to read the thoughts from someone who hasn’t got children as I completely identified with the mother in the story! Glad you still reviewed it – I thought it was an amazing book!

Thank you. It was a really interesting experience reading. I liked the book but I think the emotion I felt came from a very different place.

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Three Hours: The Top Ten Sunday Times Bestseller Kindle Edition

'If you read only one thriller this year; make it this one' Daily Mail ' Gob-smackingly, heart-stoppingly, breath-holdingly brilliant ' Ruth Jones ------------ THREE HOURS TO SAVE THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE In rural Somerset in the middle of a blizzard, the unthinkable happens: a school is under siege. 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 three intense hours, all must find the courage to stand up to evil and save the people they love. A TOP 10 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER THE TIMES THRILLER OF THE YEAR A BEST BOOK OF 2020 IN THE SUNDAY TIMES, TIMES, GUARDIAN, MAIL, MIRROR, LITERARY REVIEW, STYLIST, RED AND GOOD HOUSEKEEPING A TIMES & SUNDAY TIMES THRILLER OF THE MONTH ------------ ' Brilliant ' Lee Child, Better off Dead 'A brave, timely and intricately crafted work' Emma Stonex, The Lamplighters ' Superb ' Kate Mosse, The City of Tears 'It's beautifully, elegantly written, SO gripping, intelligent, timely, affecting and moving' Marian Keyes, Again, Rachel 'A brilliant literary thriller... moving, masterly' Sunday Times ' Kept us on the edge of our seats from start to finish' Independent 'A novel that you live rather than merely read' Daily Telegraph 'Amazing' Davina McCall, Menopausing 'An electrifying, pulse-racing novel' Red 'Wow! This is a stunner of a book, staggeringly good' Jane Fallon, Just Got Real 'An emotionally devastating and beautifully observed literary thriller' Observer 'Astonishing, powerful, terrifying, heartbreaking' Emma Flint, Little Deaths 'I ntersperses scenes of breath-sucking tension with stirring meditations on human nature' Guardian

• Print length 306 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Penguin
• Publication date 6 January 2020
• File size 1658 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
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• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07ND6SCYG
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin; 1st edition (6 January 2020)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 1658 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 306 pages
• 299 in Political Fiction (Kindle Store)
• 408 in Political Fiction (Books)
• 486 in Terrorism Thrillers (Books)

About the author

Rosamund lupton.

Thank you for visiting my Amazon author page, it's lovely to see you here.If you click on the yellow 'follow' button Amazon will send you emails if there's a special deal you might be interested in.

My books are not easy to slot into a particular genre, and you can usually find them under 'contemporary fiction', 'literary fiction', 'political thriller' and 'psychological thriller.'

My latest novel 'Three Hours', was chosen as the Times Thriller of the Year and I'm still in shock.

I've written three others novels: 'Sister', 'Afterwards' & 'The Quality of Silence'

I love hearing from readers, so please do follow me if you like on twitter or Instagram or visit my website.

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Three Hours: The Top Ten Sunday Times Bestseller Kindle Edition

'If you read only one thriller this year; make it this one' Daily Mail ' Gob-smackingly, heart-stoppingly, breath-holdingly brilliant ' Ruth Jones ------------ THREE HOURS TO SAVE THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE In rural Somerset in the middle of a blizzard, the unthinkable happens: a school is under siege. 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 three intense hours, all must find the courage to stand up to evil and save the people they love. A TOP 10 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER THE TIMES THRILLER OF THE YEAR A BEST BOOK OF 2020 IN THE SUNDAY TIMES, TIMES, GUARDIAN, MAIL, MIRROR, LITERARY REVIEW, STYLIST, RED AND GOOD HOUSEKEEPING A TIMES & SUNDAY TIMES THRILLER OF THE MONTH ------------ ' Brilliant ' Lee Child, Better off Dead 'A brave, timely and intricately crafted work' Emma Stonex, The Lamplighters ' Superb ' Kate Mosse, The City of Tears 'It's beautifully, elegantly written, SO gripping, intelligent, timely, affecting and moving' Marian Keyes, Again, Rachel 'A brilliant literary thriller... moving, masterly' Sunday Times ' Kept us on the edge of our seats from start to finish' Independent 'A novel that you live rather than merely read' Daily Telegraph 'Amazing' Davina McCall, Menopausing 'An electrifying, pulse-racing novel' Red 'Wow! This is a stunner of a book, staggeringly good' Jane Fallon, Just Got Real 'An emotionally devastating and beautifully observed literary thriller' Observer 'Astonishing, powerful, terrifying, heartbreaking' Emma Flint, Little Deaths 'I ntersperses scenes of breath-sucking tension with stirring meditations on human nature' Guardian

• Print length 306 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Penguin
• Publication date 6 Jan. 2020
• File size 1658 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• See all details

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From the back cover, about the author, product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07ND6SCYG
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin; 1st edition (6 Jan. 2020)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 1658 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 306 pages
• 39 in Political Fiction (Kindle Store)
• 71 in Political Thrillers & Suspense
• 72 in Political Fiction (Books)

About the author

Rosamund lupton.

Thank you for visiting my Amazon author page, it's lovely to see you here.If you click on the yellow 'follow' button Amazon will send you emails if there's a special deal you might be interested in.

My books are not easy to slot into a particular genre, and you can usually find them under 'contemporary fiction', 'literary fiction', 'political thriller' and 'psychological thriller.'

My latest novel 'Three Hours', was chosen as the Times Thriller of the Year and I'm still in shock.

I've written three others novels: 'Sister', 'Afterwards' & 'The Quality of Silence'

I love hearing from readers, so please do follow me if you like on twitter or Instagram or visit my website.

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#BookReview of Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton

(Blurb for Three Hours from GoodReads) Three hours is 180 minutes or 10,800 seconds. It is a morning’s lessons, a dress rehearsal of Macbeth, a snowy trek through the woods.

It is an eternity waiting for news. Or a countdown to something terrible.

It is 180 minutes to discover who you will die for and what men will kill for.

In rural Somerset in the middle of a blizzard, the unthinkable happens: a school is under siege. Told from the point of view of the people at the heart of it, 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 desperately 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.

Chaos…

This was my first impression when reading Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton. What the heck is going on I thought? I guess it’s what the author intended.

The story begins when the Headteacher of Cliff Heights School is hit in the head by the ricochet from a gunshot. He’s dragged into the school library by some of his sixth formers and looked after by Hannah Jacobs. We gradually become aware that a gunman is pacing outside the library door, but they’ve not attempted to get in.

In the meantime, another group of staff and pupils are in the drama theatre rehearsing the school play Macbeth . They are probably in the safest part of the school at the moment as it is fairly impregnable. Everyone is receiving texts from their friends warning them of the events unfolding outside. It slowly becomes clear that four students are missing, Dom Streeter, Jamie Alton, Rafi Bukhari and Tobias Fern. What’s happened to them? Are they safe?

On the outside, parents have been alerted of the incident and all naturally drive to the school to find out more. The police and media are already there.

Oh, and it’s snowing heavily.

The school we learn is situated in the woodlands. The buildings are separated into three areas, Old school, New school and Junior School so the gunmen could be in any of the buildings. All this just adds to the mounting suspense.

Now we jump back an hour to see Rafi Bukhari running towards Junior school. He has heard and seen the remains of a small bomb. Shrapnel is buried into a nearby tree, his first thoughts are to save his younger brother Basi. Both he and Basi are refugees from war-torn Syria, so he has seen the destructive power of IEDs before. He manages to warn the teachers of what he has seen and helps to evacuate the younger children (his brother included) to a nearby beach. He then heads back towards the Old school. We discover that his girlfriend is Hannah (seen earlier in the Library with the Headmaster).

The author gradually unveils layers of this story piece by piece and it slowly becomes clearer to the reader what is happening. Unfortunately, we don’t dwell on anybody for too long, making it difficult to build a bond with any of the characters. We seem to step from one group of students to another and then over to the worried families.

In the second part of the book, there’s a bit more order with the introduction of DI Rose Polstein. From here on, the story becomes a little more police procedural, and we get to see what they know and don’t. We still flit about though from group to group, but there does seem a little more cohesion.

I enjoyed the slow build-up of atmosphere and suspense, I think that Rosamund Lupton was successful in this endeavour. I also loved the fact that there were a few plot twists later on in the story which took me by surprise. I’m glad I read the novel through to the end because at one point I had seriously considered not finishing it, the subject matter can be a tough one.

I Didn’t Like

As I’ve mentioned before, it took me a while to get into the story as it began chaotically, to begin with. Moving from group to group throughout the story made it difficult to empathise with any of the characters really. There also didn’t seem to be a hero figure that we could latch onto, certainly early on.

It’s a difficult balancing act. Do you have a clear simple structured story that the reader can easily follow, building characters? Or do you take the reader on a different journey full of intricate layers? I think Rosamund Lupton has got the balance just about right here.

A powerful story with hints of Dunblane.

Recommended…

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