Synopses & Reviews
Four simultaneous plane crashes. Three child survivors. A religious fanatic who insists "The Three" are harbingers of the apocalypse. What if he's right?The world is stunned when four planes crash within hours of each other on different continents. There doesn't seem to be a correlation between the crashes, except that in three of the four air disasters, a single child is the sole survivor. Dubbed "the three" by the press, these "miracle children" achieve international celebrity. Things take a dark turn when a fanatical preacher starts insisting that the young survivors are three of the four harbingers of the apocalypse.
As the children's behavior grows increasingly disturbing, even their loved ones start to suspect there could be some truth behind the conspiracy theory. And when a survivor from the fourth accident is found, deadly alliances are formed and it becomes ever more difficult- and dangerous -to decipher the truth.
Combining the complexity of Lost and the thrills of Stephen King, THE THREE is an enormously ambitious thriller from a blazingly talented storyteller.
Review
"The Three is really wonderful, a mix of Michael Crichton and Shirley Jackson. Hard to put down and vastly entertaining."--Stephen King
Review
"Lotz is a ferociously imaginative storyteller whose twisty plots will kick the stairs out from under you. She's a talent to watch."--Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls
Review
"A spellbinding tale of science fiction, religious fervor and media madness that makes us wonder who, exactly, are the monsters."--The Washington Post
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A "fascinating and deeply creepy novel . . . [Lotz] spins a tail of disaster and fanaticism that is both entertaining and scarily realistic. The Three is the real deal: gripping, unpredictable and utterly satisfying."--BookPage
Review
"This absorbing novel seems at times like a descendant of Lost: an irresistible premise involving a plane crash, a superb feel for the uncanny . . . Across a clever range of forms, including Skype interviews, tape recordings and transcripts from Internet forums, the truth slowly emerges. The Three is nicely researched and hard to put down."--USA Today
Review
"Lotz does an excellent job of building suspense...THE THREE provides plenty of assurance that Lotz is a new horror writer who can inject some much needed originality and gusto into the genre."--The San Francisco Chronicle
Synopsis
Four simultaneous plane crashes. Three child survivors. A religious fanatic who insists the three are harbingers of the apocalypse. What if he's right?The world is stunned when four commuter planes crash within hours of each other on different continents. Facing global panic, officials are under pressure to find the causes. With terrorist attacks and environmental factors ruled out, there doesn't appear to be a correlation between the crashes, except that in three of the four air disasters a child survivor is found in the wreckage.
Dubbed 'The Three' by the international press, the children all exhibit disturbing behavioural problems, presumably caused by the horror they lived through and the unrelenting press attention. This attention becomes more than just intrusive when a rapture cult led by a charismatic evangelical minister insists that the survivors are three of the four harbingers of the apocalypse. The Three are forced to go into hiding, but as the children's behaviour becomes increasingly disturbing, even their guardians begin to question their miraculous survival...
About the Author
Sarah Lotz is a screenwriter and pulp fiction novelist with a fondness for the macabre and fake names. Among other things, she writes urban horror novels under the name SL Grey with author Louis Greenberg and a YA zombie series with her daughter, Savannah, under the name Lily Herne. She lives in Cape Town with her family and other animals.