Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton
Genre: Literary Fiction
Published: 9 Jan 2020 | Viking Books UK
Swathi’s Rating: 4.5/5
About the Book:
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 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.
Swathi’s Thoughts:
The new Rosamund Lupton book follows the disastrous Three Hours after a School in Somerset is attacked and in seize by a masked gunman. There’s a huge blizzard falling outside and the kids are terrified and hiding inside the school buildings held together by the brave teachers. The head teacher is shot and he’s bleeding, skipping in and out of consciousness and he’s in no state to remember the face he saw when he got shot.
This is a special school. Not by its beautiful, atmospheric architecture that blends with the scenic beauty of the place, but it is also an open minded, progressive school that takes in refugees from all over the world.
I so loved the theme of the school and would love to have studied in such a diverse learning environment. It would have been a great experience to befriend kids from different spheres of lives.
THREE HOURS is more than a literary fiction with a strong plot and beautiful writing that could put you to tears. It’s a heart-pounding, edge-of-the-seat thrilling experience that makes you want to root for those kids, teachers and parents and the police officers who are working in the terrific blizzard to save the lives.
Rosamund Lupton details every minute of the 180 minute struggle, focusing on the students, teachers stuck inside and the worried parents outside. Also shows the investigation handled by Profiler Rose and her team who methodically decipher the psychological behavior of the gunman in action. Wow what a ride it was! Utterly brilliant capture of emotions, weather and media going frantic in the modern world.
Makes me realize how careful one need to be in taking care of the kids. They’re previous aren’t they? Poor poor souls. They are our responsibility to make them better citizens in the world and protect them as much possible. Tsk Now I’m getting emotional.
Many many to Viking Books UK for having me on the official blog tour for the book. I’m utterly grateful for the opportunity to be able to read this book. All opinions are solely mine.
Meet the Author:
Her debut novel, ‘Sister’ was a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime, a Sunday Times and New York Times best seller and the fastest selling debut in WHSmiths’history. Her next two books ‘Afterwards’ and ‘The Quality of Silence’ were also Sunday Times best sellers. Her novels have been translated into over thirty languages.
