I’m going to be in the minority here but although this book is beautifully written by a writer I’m a huge admirer of, it didn’t hit the spot for me. I got to 20% and hadn’t connected with any of the characters and didn’t even care enough about any of them to flick to the end to see what happened to them.
Not for me.

In a small private school, in the middle of woods, a siege is taking place. The head master has been shot and children are hiding as best they can from the gunmen who are bent on bloodshed.

Rosamund Lupton writes tense thrillers and this is no exception. Previous novels of hers have been bestsellers and without doubt this will be too. The narrative is set over a space of three hours with several points of view including those of the head teacher, various pupils, teachers, parents and the woman who is in charge of the police operation and trying to find out who the gunmen are and what their motivation is. This is well done on the whole. It can be very confusing when there are multiple viewpoints and there are times when you have to skip back a little to check on what you've just read but it works well overall.

The storyline is bang up to date and with judicial use of quotes from newspapers it makes its point very well. Quotes from Macbeth are also used to excellent effect. To say more would be to risk spoilers.

To sum up, this is well worth a read. It's not perfect, there are perhaps too many points of view for me and I also found it quite unrealistic in places. The children seem unnaturally calm for instance and the reaction of one parent in particular just didn't ring true. But it's a book that will stay with you. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.

I am - like other reviewers - struggling to find a way of describing the impact this book has had on me as a reader. This is a fantastic piece of writing - crisp, economical and deeply moving.

The author handles this difficult subject with great skill and sensitivity. The characters largely are strong and believable - as is sadly, the situation.

I'm hugely grateful to the publishers and netgalley for allowing me to read this book in advance.I suspect I will be talking about it for years to come

I don't think any words I can write will do this book justice.

A fantastic piece of writing; thrilling, moving, topical, sensitive subjects skillfully handled. I've just finished this book and am already thinking who I can buy it for when it's released.

This is also a real cinematic feel to it too, crying out for a film to be made, somebody snap it up!

A fairly basic story line very relevant to today's world, cleverly done by using various perspectives to tell the story. It reminded me a bit of We Need to Talk about Kevin. This book was engaging and relevant and gave me a lot to think about, especially as a parent.

Thank you for allowing me to review this book.

thank you for allowing me to read this book. it was very easy to read. i enjoyed the story line and the characters. look forward to reading more from this author.

WoW! This book has everything I want in a thriller. It's unputdownable. Be prepared to be glued to this story! I won't give anything away so just read it!!

Fast paced and lots of twists. One of the best I've read.

Good versus evil. The novel had an emotive plot. I think Dunblane in 1996 was the last school shooting in the UK. In the USA I discovered re-Google that there had been eight school shootings this year already with four killed and 17 wounded including two incidents in the past week. I recall the horror of the Columbine massacre, and since Sandy Hook in 2012 140 have died in school shootings. Years ago I read “Nineteen Minutes” by Jodi Picoult. I couldn’t wait to read this book, but I thought it fell short despite being a fan of this author.
A rural English village during a snowstorm. A shot in the wood. I caught myself holding my breath at first, with the tension when suddenly the momentum dipped into tranquillity and life proceeded as if on a normal day. The plot sagged hopelessly at this point. The children seemed calm and unfazed at lockdown despite their Headmaster shot. Nobody is screaming, panicking or hysterical. The children are vaguely uneasy but make models and rehearse for their performance of Macbeth. It hardly seemed credible. Intermittently, there’s the sound of the unknown, ominous footsteps pacing the corridors, which caused a whisper of tension. The snowy weather conditions worsened. As high-profile national news, many factions became involved, and there were some topical issues thrashed out. The plot jumped haphazardly from person to person, group or an official faction of assistance. I found this confusing with the need to backtrack constantly. Nothing vital seemed to happen for ages. A poor advert for mobiles which ran out of charge or unanswered and useless in keeping frantic parents assured. More useful to the perpetrators proving the dangers of technology in the wrong hands. I found it longwinded, slow and with a predictable ending. I didn’t find myself fully connected with any of the characters. Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House UK.

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.

Three Hours is based on every parent's worst nightmare - a school siege, young pupils held hostage, teachers being shot and gunmen surrounding the school seemingly uninterested in negotiating.  What makes this particular story stand out from others in this genre is that the school in question is based in Somerset, UK and in the midst of a fierce and unrelenting snow blizzard.

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.

This beautiful and sensitive story is narrated through the eyes of several main characters bringing a multi-layer human angle enabling the reader to watch the story unfold through so many different sides.

It's emotional and raw in places leaving your heart breaking, but inspiring and courageous in others allowing our hearts to soar with hope and love..

Three Hours is NOT an easy book to read as a parent or even as a human being, however it has an important message running through the pages “Love is the most powerful thing there is” and after finishing this story I certainly felt that message loud and clear.

It's every parent's worst nightmare - only doubled; a school is under attack by one or more armed killers and the fear is that it's part of a terror attack, even if there's unlikely to be any difference in the resulting carnage. What is worse in the case that Rosamund Lupton develops in Three Hours is that this attack on Cliff Heights School in Somerset doesn't appear to be following the expected pattern of such attacks, but rather seems to have a plan of its own that is difficult to identify. Worst of all, the attack is taking place in real-time, with the teachers and pupils holed-up under siege.

Rosamund Lupton handles the growing tension and horrifying progression of the terror attack well. There's the initial confusion, a bomb going off in the woods, the head teacher shot by a masked gunman, the implementation of the emergency drill eventually put into practice. Some pupils are able to retreat to the security of the school theatre where they are rehearsing a production of Macbeth, others barricade themselves into the library with the wounded head teacher, the younger children escorted to a safe place. But as the attackers stall before their next move, there's a sense that the drill procedures might be playing into their hands and they are just biding time.

Who is behind the attack and what exactly their plan is keeps the tension going for a while, and while they sit out the siege, it gives the police and counter-terrorism units not only a surprising amount of time to work out what is going on. You might be glad to find that the police are completely in charge and competent in how they enact emergency procedures, but there are unrealistically a little too quick to break the heavy encryption on the release of time-managed messages and warnings while it is still going on, but again there is a suspicion that it's a little too easy and that they are just playing into the hands of whatever scheme the attackers have in mind.

One interesting feature of the modern terrorist siege that Lupton picks up on is the role that live 24-hour news channels, mobile phones and social media can play. Not only can the terrorists strike fear into the wider public by getting their message out much more quickly, but the flow of information works both ways, and if the armed attackers are watching TV or listening to the frantic messages and live interviews on the phone with children locked in rooms, they know exactly what the police are planning and what measures are being taken.

Taking such matters into consideration keeps up interest as much as the mystery of why armed attackers would target a liberal, progressive, open-minded and non-religious school. Lupton zeroes in also on a couple of significant pupils in immediate jeopardy, with their concerned parents going frantic outside. As a thriller, Three Hours is undoubtedly tense and well-paced in its drama, tension and gradual revelations, but there is a sense that it is a little unrealistic, and it does seem a little academic and progressive-media-friendly, not least in how it counters the meanness of the attackers with the heroism of brave heroic young pupils, including those who continue with their dress-rehearsal of Daesh-inspired take on Macbeth, even as their school is under siege.

What Lupton really can't escape however, and what takes away some of the tension, is the tone of the concerned liberal parent who, despite developing a situation where their greatest fears are being realised, always operates with the underlying assumption that we can trust in the good guys to win out in the end. It's not that she side-steps the controversial political questions, in one case impressively taking to task the xenophobic UK tabloid press for their fearmongering and misrepresentation of ethnic minorities - but her counter-argument that the highly-professional rapid-reaction code-cracking security services will prevail, operating freely, unburdened by political pressures or austerity funding cuts, feels somewhat naive. One can only hope that she is right, but should a similar circumstance occur, I suspect that it could be turn out a lot worse than this.

What an incredible book. I was totally immersed in it from the first page right to the last paragraph. So well written and what a difficult upsetting subject to deal with, but tackled head on, and at times, brutal. I loved the Macbeth storyline that twisted through it. Not an easy read at times, but if I could give it more than 5 stars I would!

Wow what a fabulous book, it reminded me of Nineteen Minutes by Jodie Picoult.

I got into the story line straight away and just loved Rosamund's style of writing. It kept me gripped throughout, I cannot speak highly enough of this book and it was an excellent page turner that I didn't want to end.

A very worthy five stars and I thoroughly recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Books for giving me the opportunity to read this superb book.

What A Read.

Just a couple of books ago I mentioned that reading third party present from multiple view points made me feel disengaged from the characters. Three Hours goes to show that tense and POV is in the hands of the writer because in this book it just pulled me right into the pulsating heart of the action as I jumped from character to character, adrenaline ratcheting up the further I read. In fact, I stopped reading at 80% last night and had a wakeful night full of tense dreams, dreams influenced by this book.

So the plot: A school is on lockdown, bombs have exploded, gun shots have been fired, evacuation in place. All that are left are a handful of sixth formers in the library, English room and theatre - and a class of seven year old out in an art room in the woods. For a UK reader there's both a connection and disconnect here; sixth former, junior school, these are our words. But school shootings happen elsewhere, don't they?

The headteacher is lying shot in the library, inexperienced teens trying to save his life and barricade themselves in, the Deputy Head is isolated in an office, the art teacher is trying to distract her young class with pottery whilst doing her best to protect them, in the theatre they are getting on with a rehearsal because what else can they do? Parents are gathering in a leisure centre, the police are trying to manage an unmanageable situation as the snow falls and social media catches fire and Rafi can't work out what is real and what is his chronic PTSD. The book takes place over the next three hours jumping from POV to POV; a police officer, Hannah, trying to save her head teacher's life whilst worrying about her boyfriend, Rafi, needing to take care of his brother, multiple teachers and pupils, a worried mother - but never the gun men themselves. They are as anonymous as their balaclavas. Their hate might ignite the plot, but not the narrative.

This is a book about love, about hate, about family, about loneliness and failure, about courage, about ordinary people being extraordinary, about fear and about hope. It's an intense, emotional, erudite and beautifully written read that buries deep into the question of what it means to be human. It's going to be huge. Read it.

It's not often that I struggle to find the words to describe a book, and how it made me feel, but here I am, struggling. Rosamund Lupton is a well-known, successful author, so her brilliant writing is not a surprise, but the depth of Three Hours, how it covered everything from white supremacy to Trump to Katie bloody Hopkins, from Macbeth to teenage love to Columbine, is just unreal.

I won't attempt to pick this book apart, as I don't feel I could do it justice. Many, if not most, people will recognise the issues discussed in this book. Brexit has created a broiling pot of racism and hatred and divide. People like Trump and Katie Hopkins and the Daily Mail feed that pot, stirring it and making it go viral on social media. I have no doubt that the shocking headlines used in this book are real.

The hopelessness some of the characters feel, Beth Alton in particular, is raw and cutting. The overriding feeling, though, is one of love. Of acceptance, peace, community. When one turns against a particular group within society, one turns against society as a whole. We live in a wonderfully varied society, full of different cultures and religions and traditions, and that is to be celebrated. And there is nothing more powerful than a society united against hate. Thank you to the author for writing such a powerful, poignant book.

'Three Hours' is an incredible book. The storyline is powerful, holding up a mirror to the very best and the very worst of our society. Not only is the subject topical, but the story is engaging and I was gripped from beginning to end. Even at one point when I could see the horrors about to come crashing down and the stress was getting to me, I couldn't put it down.

This has the honour of being the first book I've read where I wanted to skim the end to check on a couple of people because I was so wrapped up in the characters and their struggles. Luckily I wasn't reading a print copy so I had to wait it out with the characters, which felt like being under siege myself.

I emerged from 'Three Hours' a little older, a little wiser, saddened and heartened. I will never forget this book. A must read.

Wow! Heartstoppingly good! I just couldn't it put it down, amazing book. Such a terrible subject yet brilliantly written. I highly recommend it.

This was a slightly difficult book for me to read at points, as being a teacher myself it was a little close to home, having had to practise school lockdown procedures before. However, this was generally a well written book set over three hours of time on a school day. It is about a school that comes under lockdown when explosions in nearby woods are heard and the headteacher is shot by an intruder. The story is told in the third person of various events happening to the different characters in the book, such as students, teachers and parents. It mainly deals with the issues around radicalisation, where the school is proud of its very liberal and inclusive views, and has recently taken on two refugee boys from Syria. As the story unfolds around the school lockdown, so we are also told the story of the two young Syrian boys before they were taken into the school by the headteacher. Whilst the school is under lockdown a group of students are rehearsing a production of 'Macbeth', and parallels are then drawn by the author between events in Syria and terrorist groups and events and characters in the play itself. Whilst these literary strategies help to drawn links between these events, the part of the book that let it down for me was that it was slightly predictable. Whilst this issue is very current and of extreme importance, we are not sure at first who the gunman are, but that the headteacher heard one of the gunman say one word which made him realise what it was all about. When this word is finally revealed towards the end of the book and we find out who the gunman are, I did not feel at all surprised as I had already suspected these characters myself, and it became a little too typecast in some ways. So, although this book deals with an extremely current critical issue, the outcome for me was a little obvious and so the overall story did not grip me at times as much I had would have liked. My thanks go to Penguin Books UK and netgalley for the opportunity to read an ARC copy of this.

Wow ...what an incredible read on so many levels! First of all a warning...this is a brutal read, dealing with real issues of today but in a fictional context. You may well be shocked at some of the attitudes portrayed and horrified with the brutality of the arising situation ....BUT there is also so much good to see and experience too. As you will read in other reviews (so I won't say much here}, this novel is about a British private school based on the coast in Somerset which in the space of 3 hours is under siege and held hostage by well armed individuals. Very early on we learn about how some pupils and staff escape but others remain in captivity. We hear about some of their thoughts and background stories plus those of a couple of parents awaiting news and of the security team who come in to manage the situation. Alongside all this, part of the school continue to rehearse 'Macbeth' and the parallels of this Shakespearean tale work alongside the siege going along around it. Amazing piece of writing all round. Highly recommended if you can take the tension!

Wow, just wow! A word of advice, do not read the heart-stopping climax of this book in bed, or like me, you just might spend that night with your heart and brain sleeplessly swirling! I found such an emotional punch in this beautifully written book, full of tender, youthful love, loyalty and incredible courage in counterpoint to the depravity of radicalisation and hate: the very best and worst of human nature. And so relevant to our unsettled times, with the provocative stirring of racial and religious hatred by tweets and newspaper columns written by presidents and politicians, and yet also so historic and deep rooted that the ongoing rehearsals of Macbeth in the ‘safe’ theatre area of the besieged school serve, with so many appropriate quotations, to underline how far back such prejudice and induced hysteria can be traced. Even the weather has its place in racking up the tension as an increasingly severe snow storm makes rescue ever more implausible. A race against time that had me breathless and truly moved. Very highly recommended.

A great thrilling book covering a fictional school shooting in the uk. A different style for the author which I completely loved. Fully recommend