It's tumultuous, full of panic, but underlying it all is compassion. Rosamund Lupton may write about horror, but the message she wants to get across is a positive one. We see what strength it demands from people to survive a harrowing situation like that and we get to read about acts of selflessness and pure bravery. I've just finished reading this. Exceptional - so well planned and written. I'm also in awe of Rosamund Lupton Sarah Edghill Its very difficult to say what is good, what is bad, which parts were thrilling and which parts were not so without giving any of the plot away and thus ruining the element(s) of surprise throughout the book! ( a cop out anno but there you go!) however what I will say is that the book is ( as maybe you would expect via the subject ) political and at times this becomes a bit overpowering! 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. I am glad I got the chance to be part of the blog tour for Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton. I was reading this book while I was on a plane, travelling to Macedonia, and it was a great adventure all the way through. In all honesty, I enjoyed it a lot, but it didn’t make my favourites list.

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. 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 as she tries to come to terms with what she is experiencing, I really felt for her and what she was living through 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.

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It's taken me a couple of days since I finished Three Hours to think about this extraordinary story and what I can write in my review. Beautifully written, emotionally note-perfect and nail-bitingly tense. It's BRILLIANT -- Tammy Cohen What I found really interesting was the job of DCI Rose Polstein and Dannisha Taylor the negotiator. It was fascinating to see their thought process, how they profiled the gunmen, gained the information needed to identify the suspect and dig deep into their life and psyche. Rosamund Lupton shows great understanding of this process, giving a real sense of tension, immediacy and reality to the book. The use of short, staccato sentences in parts also gives the impression the tension and fear of all those involved; students, teachers, parents, and police officers. It's beautifully, elegantly written, SO gripping, intelligent, timely, affecting and moving' Marian Keyes, Again, Rachel

A Good Read’ – BBC Radio 4 -Pippa Haywood, Felicity Montagu and host Harriett Gilbert discuss ‘Three Hours’ (go to 9.35 on the timer) https://tinyurl.com/ycx5xb8s 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. It is early days, but this could be one of the thrillers of the decade. If you read only one thriller this year; make it this one: it is that good’ Daily Mail Vanity Fair– Rosamund Lupton looks at the books, poems and plays that inspired her novel, Three Hours https://tinyurl.com/ycu5r787

In her first novel Sister, Lupton tells the story of Beatrice, living in New York, in search for Tess, her missing sister, who lives in London.

The ‘police procedural’ side of things did not daunt the reader and held some fascinating insights into what happens in these situationsWaterstones Podcast –‘Fear, Hope & Action with Jenny Offill, Rosamund Lupton and Julia Ebner https://tinyurl.com/ya7fl4ng We’re taking our first steps into the school located in Somerset woodlands and welcoming an ordinary school day: students in their classrooms: old school and new school mingled together: theater group is getting ready for the rehearsal of Macbeth, some of the children joining their pottery class as some of them are at the library.

It's beautifully, elegantly written, SO gripping, intelligent, timely, affecting and moving Marian KeyesRosamund Lupton delivers a powerful & beautifully written novel about survival & bravery that kept me thinking if i had as much courage as these year 12 students had at a school in Somerset high school in England, the principal Mr Marr lies critically injured in the library two students know first aid as its compulsory for their year, the girl Hannah covers herself over him she takes off her hoody but silence is the best option as a gunman remains at large in the corridor. I've just finished reading this. Exceptional - so well planned and written. I'm also in awe of Rosamund Lupton -- Sarah Edghill 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 Healey, bestselling author of 'Elizabeth is Missing' and 'Whistle in the Dark' The extraordinary new novel everyone is talking about from the Sunday Times best-selling author of Sister