Rosamund Lupton - Three Hours

Rosamund Lupton is the author of Sister, a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime, a Sunday Times and New York Timesbestseller, winner of the Strand Magazine critics award and the Richard and Judy Bookclub Readers Choice Award. Her next two books Afterwards and The Quality of Silence (also a Richard and Judy pick) were Sunday Timesbestsellers. Her books have been published in over thirty languages.

Three Hours is both a gripping thriller and a beautiful meditation on the nature of family, friendship, courage and unintended lethal consequences. Superb Kate Mosse

Three Hours is one of the most exhilarating reading experiences Ive ever had. Rosamund Lupton takes a dark, painful subject and turns it into a novel full of hope and compassion. An amazing achievement Emma Healey

This is a stunner of a book. Staggeringly good Jane Fallon

ASTONISHING. Powerful, terrifying, heartbreaking Emma Flint

Propulsively plotted and full of vivid characters who earn our concern, Three Hours held me in its eloquent grip Emma Donoghue

So gripping, intelligent, timely, affecting and moving Marian Keyes

Utterly breathtaking and dazzling Jenny Colgan

Will chill your blood and break your heart by turns a masterclass in suspense Cara Hunter

Rosamund Luptons best book yet, and that is high praise. A monster story for our fractious historical moment. Chilling, suspenseful, humane and brave William Landay

An incredible, unbelievably powerful book. Its taut, its appalling, its uplifting, its extraordinary. Simply stunning Dinah Jefferies

This is an incredible novel: a heady combination of elegant writing, nuanced characterization, deep emotion and heart-stopping tension Elizabeth Brooks

Three Hours is exceptional at turns hearbreaking, warm, terrifying, perceptive and grippingly page-turning Kate Hamer

I read Three Hours in two days, in awe. Its 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

Beautifully written, emotionally note-perfect and nail-bitingly tense. Its brilliant Tammy Cohen

Three Hours is about hate crime, but what rings out from its pages what is likely to stay with you long after youve read that magnificent last line is love. I wanted to read Three Hours slowly to savour every beautiful word, yet it is so compelling that I couldnt put it down. This one is destined for the bestsellers list, I reckon, and rightly so. It is phenomenal Fiona Mitchell

Its mind blowing. Its a horrifying story but told with such compassion and humanity. A large cast of characters and yet you feel genuinely emotionally engaged with each one Amazing Francesca Jakobi

Three Hours is 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 An exceptional and heartbreaking read Jenny Quintana

Lupton tells her story with searing beauty and unbearable tension. Exquisite. Compassionate. Painful. Fantastic. A work of powerful imagination that wears its intelligence lightly. Dont read this if you want to be able to put it down Kate London

Three Hours has a voice all of its own. Character and plot leap out at you from the first line. Rosamund Lupton makes you race through the pages with her irresistible storytelling. Impossible to stop until you reach the poignant end Jane Corry

Three Hours is phenomenal. Absolutely glorious, heart-rending and gripping! Gytha Lodge

Exceptional. Im in awe of Rosamund Lupton Sarah Edghill

Three Hours is incredible. Haunting. Heartbreaking, relentless, beautiful Abi Dar

For Felicity Blunt

an inspiration and an exceptional person, thank you

And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?

Rumi (12071273)

A moment of stillness; as if time itself is waiting, can no longer be measured. Then the subtle press of a fingertip, whorled skin against cool metal, starts it beating again and the bullet moves faster than sound.

It smashes the glass case on the wall by the headmasters head, which displays medals for gallantry awarded in the last World War to boys barely out of the sixth form. Their medals turn into shrapnel; hitting the headmasters soft brown hair, breaking the arm of his glasses, piercing through the bone that protects the part of him that thinks, loves, dreams and fears; as if pieces of metal are travelling through the who of him and the why of him. But he is still able to think because its he who has thought of those boys, shrapnel made of gallantry, tearing apart any sense hed once had of a benevolent order of things.

Hes falling backwards. Another shot; the corridor a reverberating sound tunnel. Hands are grabbing him and dragging him into the library.

Hannah and David are moving him away from the closed library door and putting him into the recovery position. His sixth-formers have all learnt first aid, compulsory in Year 12, but how did they learn to be courageous? Perhaps it was there all this time and he didnt notice it; medals again, walked past a hundred times, a thousand.

He tries to reassure them that even if it looks bad he is pretty sure it must look very bad indeed inside hes okay, the who of him is still intact but he cant speak. Instead sounds are coming out of his mouth that are gasps and grunts and will make them more afraid so he stops trying to speak.

His pupils faces look ghostly in the dim light, eyes gleaming, dark clothes invisible. They turned off all the electric lights when the code red was called. The Victorian wooden shutters have been pulled shut over the windows; traces of weak winter daylight seep inside through the cracks.