Three Hours

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

THREE HOURS TO SAVE THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE

A TOP 10 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

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.

'A brilliant literary thriller... moving, masterly, flawlessly orchestrated' Sunday Times

'The immediacy of Rosamund Lupton's writing is extraordinary... Gemma Whelan narrates flawlessly. Three Hours is much more than a nail-biting thriller' Christina Hardyment, The Times

'This could so easily be a story which spotlights evil and terror. Instead, it deftly weaves a message of courage, love and redemption, and Whelan's performance is absolutely electrifying.' Stylist

'Three Hours intersperses scenes of breath-sucking tension with stirring meditations on human nature. . . The message Lupton's novel delivers is that only love can save us' Sara Collins, Guardian


© Rosamund Lupton 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Critics Review

  • 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
  • It’s beautifully, elegantly written, SO gripping, intelligent, timely, affecting and moving

    Marian Keyes
  • There’s no one else writing quite like Rosamund Lupton in fiction today – the way she combines high tension with a compassionate and humane take on the world is unique. Three Hours is exceptional – at turns heart-breaking, warm, terrifying, perceptive and grippingly page turning

    Kate Hamer
  • 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
  • This is an incredible novel: a heady combination of elegant writing, nuanced characterisation, deep emotion and heart-stopping tension. I was torn, all the way through, between wanting to slow down in order to relish the detail, and wanting to speed up in order to find out what was going to happen’

    Elizabeth Brooks
  • I read Three Hours in two days, in awe. It’s breathtaking. A modern rumination on the issues that divide 21st century life, a celebration of refugees, of mental health, of love and hope and bravery. I loved it more than I can say’

    Gillian McAllister

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