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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.

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The ‘police procedural’ side of things did not daunt the reader and held some fascinating insights into what happens in these situations 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.

Lupton writes with sensibility and from a place of compassion. We witness the story from different viewpoints and experience the trauma from all possible angles: we meet the students that are trying to rehearse for their performance of Macbeth, we learn what it is like for the refugee brothers Rafi and Basi from Syria, we see the police trying to get on top of the situation while mother Beth just wants any information on her son she can get. There was an ongoing theme of a ‘mystery’ gunman and after reading the ending 4 times I cant seem to figure out who it was or if we were ever actually told who it was, anyone who has read it and worked it out please let me know 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.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. Beautifully written, emotionally note-perfect and nail-bitingly tense. It's BRILLIANT -- Tammy Cohen Oh no! I’m still breathing heavy! It’s stunningly hooking, terrifyingly growing on you and even though the high tension story building gave you nightmares and so many times you want to scream and say; “enough is enough”(as like most Americans say right now!!), taking breaks to clear your mind, you cannot put it down because you have to… correction: You need to see what’s gonna happen next.

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. The book give us different POVs from student and teachers in separate locations throughout the school, giving us insight to what they are experiencing. We see the harrowing levels the teachers go to in protecting the children and the students the love, courage and compassion they show under horrific circumstances. Three Hoursis a brilliant novel - moving, relevant and honest. Rosamund Lupton takes us through the story of a siege in an English school, building on the tension and our emotions as the story speeds to its conclusion. She handles difficult subjects with sensitivity and intelligence, focusing on the heroism of the individual. An exceptional and heartbreaking read Jenny Quintana Old School – on the edge of the woods rests the original Victorian structure where the offices, library, and one English class are located. An enclosed glass walkway leads to a newer addition – the theater. A school is under a siege and the headmaster has been shot. The story is being told from the point of view of everyone involved – the students, the teachers, the worried parents, the investigators, even the bad guys… Different people are hiding in different places in the school, all hoping this is just a dream.There are some fantastic characters in the book - some of the teachers Matthew Marr the brave head and his equally brave deputy Neil, Daphne the drama teacher, Jacinta the English teacher who read beautiful poetry to her students to distract them, student Hannah and one of the mums, Beth. Daphne is rehearsing Macbeth with the students when the drama starts and I love the recurring use of the Scottish play which creates some of the most powerful images and the students see that the events in the play mirror events outside the theatre and the end of the book ‘we were Burnham Wood coming up the hill to Dunsinane, marching to the beat of three words’ is just such an example. That image will stay with me for a long time. Their bravery is humbling. 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.

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. 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.

Customer reviews

The sense of concealed menace hangs like a dense fog over the school never knowing if the killer is going to step out of the mist and shoot someone. The staff try to occupy the children without conveying fear but their anxiety is palpable. Worse still there’s more than one gunman! Over three hours from 9:15 am to 12:15 pm the lives of the school’s staff, pupils and parents will change forever. 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.