Three Hours: The Top Ten Sunday Times Bestseller

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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. Three Hours is both a gripping thriller and a beautiful meditation on the nature of family, friendship, courage and unintended - lethal - consequences. Superb. Powerful, heavy topics are described; the fear, the tension, and suspense, but I was unable to engage with the characters, the emotions, and heroic acts of courage. After a promising beginning, this was a dramatic, topical story that plodded along and fell flat for me. Instead of feeling the drama, I became a detached observer. So many characters and perspectives were introduced that it was confusing to recall who everyone was and where they were located. I was not feeling connected with the characters in the way I wanted to be. I read about the actions of various teachers, the unbelievable calm of most of the school children, the helplessness of their parents, and the police proceedings. This novel's greatest strength is its moving depiction of the anguishes of parenthood and the wild possibilities of first love * The Times * Rosamund Lupton was a winner of Carlton Television's new writers' competition, and before being a novelist, she was a script-writer for television and film, writing original screenplays.

Beautifully written, emotionally note-perfect and nail-bitingly tense. It's BRILLIANT -- Tammy Cohen Cliff Heights School – located in rural Somerset. Progressive, liberal, co-ed, for children aged 4-18.The weather is almost a character itself within story line - as it's instrumental in obstructing police surveillance and causing severe delays when it comes to bringing the siege to an end. It is early days, but this could be one of the thrillers of the decade. Intense, horrifying and brilliantly told... If you read only one thriller this year; make it this one: it is that good * Daily Mail *

It's beautifully, elegantly written, SO gripping, intelligent, timely, affecting and moving Marian Keyes 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 Waterstones Podcast –‘Fear, Hope & Action with Jenny Offill, Rosamund Lupton and Julia Ebner https://tinyurl.com/ya7fl4ng 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 school is a campus of multiple buildings located in woodlands on the Somerset coast and includes a junior school, a senior school, pottery building and a theatre. It has continued to grow from the 1920s adding new to old and now provides education to 14 years of student needs. Several teachers and students occupy each of the buildings and their stories are told with compelling fascination when threat and fear hang over their every move. The novel explores how different people react, some stepping forward in moments of courage and those that don’t.Propulsively plotted and full of vivid characters who earn our concern, Three Hours held me in its eloquent grip -- Emma Donoghue, bestselling author of 'Room'

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

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This is an amazing book from an outstanding author. The start of the book is extremely dramatic and tense with students and teachers hiding in classrooms and the school theatre from gunmen and there are some superb images such as children piling books against the library door to prevent entry. This is every parents, teachers and students nightmare but the book goes deeper into issues that are so pertinent and relevant that from time to time I had to pause in the reading to reflect. 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 I have read a handful of stories featuring the abhorrent circumstances depicted here but none, I believe, have been set in Britain. Facets of this setting felt familiar to me, which only served to, again, heighten the horror for the unknown that was also hidden amongst it.