Set partially in the aftermath of the Aberfan disaster, this is ultimately a book about grief, friendship, love, loss and decisions that have long-lasting consequences. There are some harrowing moments but they are balanced with hope, love & forgiveness.

The story is set across a number of timelines, and centre round William. We see him as a schoolboy chorister in Cambridge, a newly qualified undertaker/embalmer and several years later as an adult struggling to come to terms with his own past & what we’d probably today call PTSD.
Alongside William, we also have his schoolfriend Martin (both annoying and lovable!), Williams mother (grief striken, confused, jealous), “uncle Robert” and his partner Howard (caring, loyal, but homosexual when it was still illegal) and Gloria (loving, loyal, but with hurts of her own). The relationships

There is an underlying storyline about the power of music, and there is a repetition of the Welsh song Myfanwy, and Allegris Miserere (not a piece I was familiar with). We see that music can evoke both painful & happy memories but can also bridge gaps and bring people together.

The portions of the book set in Aberfan are incredibly sensitively done yet do not minimalise the horrors that young William would have faced embalming the children who died that day. I do have some questions about whether the inclusion of the Aberfan story was strictly necessary – could a similar result have been obtained by William embalming a number of children who’d died in another way (a car accident? A house fire?). The author has clearly done intensive research, but by the end of the book I was feeling that there was something slightly sensationalist in the inclusion of this.
The book has left me with a much greater understanding of the work done by the “unknown volunteers” after the Aberfan, and no doubt other disasters. The title of “A Terrible Kindness” is very fitting …

I had no idea what this simple yet beautiful cover held but something about it promised a thoughtful, tender story. It really delivered on those expectations and I finished it with a heart full of hope.

William Lavery has just graduated as an embalmer and is about to go into the family business. But a tragic disaster in the small Welsh mining town of Aberfan prompts William to kick off his career immediately. The horrors he witnesses will cause him to remember his past, think about the future and realise that his own small kindnesses have more power than he ever imagined.

I had heard about the Aberfan disaster before reading this book but the graphic descriptions of dead children that William has to clean and embalm haunted me. The book really hit home the horrific nature of what happened that day and my heart was so heavy for the whole of the first part. This is definitely something to be aware of before picking up this book. Yes, it’s ultimately about hope and kindness but there is deep, unimaginable sadness in it too.

The second part of the book looks at William’s boyhood as a chorister in Cambridge. His friendship with another boy called Martin is an important relationship in William’s life and this becomes clearer as the book progresses. Martin is a rebel and a bad influence on William but he is also incredibly kind. Sometimes I liked him and sometimes I was irritated by him and I think that’s exactly how the author intended Martin to be.

William’s mother and uncle have different dreams for William and he has always felt torn between these two paths. He is a talented singer and rather than feeling genuine pride for her son, she sees it as a win for her over her brother-in-law. She is a very toxic person as she plays the part of a loving mother so well, when William is doing what she wants him to do. There are so many parents out there like this and it’s not too hard to see how estrangement happens, when their children reach adulthood.

William’s uncle Robert has a partner called Howard and when William realises the nature of their relationship, it opens up a lot more thoughts and questions for him. Suddenly, he sees his mother’s homophobia and he becomes aware of the prejudice and abuse that Robert and Howard experience as gay men. The treatment of gay people crops up again later in the novel and although years have passed, very little seems to have changed. Of course, homophobia is still an issue today, which shows how far we still have to go.

Many things in William’s past have understandably had a profoundly traumatic effect on him and although it’s never given a label, he is unmistakeably suffering from PTSD. I was really hopeful that he would confront his demons because I knew it would be the only way he could move forward. The book tackles this complex, devastating mental health condition in a very subtle yet sensitive way, illustrating the debilitating effects it can have on a person’s whole life.

During my reading of this book, I gained a new appreciation and admiration for embalmers and anyone who works in the death industry. It forced me to think about the true kindness of these people and the incredible amount of strength and compassion they must hold. It makes the title A Terrible Kindness very fitting for William and what he does for a living.

A Terrible Kindness is heartbreaking, hopeful and a beautifully told story. In some ways, it is a portrait of one man’s life but it’s also a celebration of life, compassion and the power of selflessness and empathy. It’s also about learning to accept help when we need it, no matter how hard it may be to ask. A gorgeous, thoughful novel that will no doubt rip your heart out.

It's brilliant, riveting and compelling. An emotionally charged story that I couldn't put down.
Great characters, excellent storytelling.
It's one of those book that you cannot stop thinking about even after you ended it.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

A Terrible Kindness tells the story of William, a newly qualified, top of his class embalmer, who intends to follow his father's example and go into business with his uncle Robert. Just as he is finishing his special graduating meal, he offers to help with the bodies of the children at the Aberfan disaster. We read about his 'terrible kindness' but also his past as a chorister at Cambridge, nearly ten years before.

I loved this book and the character of William and both the beginning and ending, book ended by the Aberfan disaster, were devastating to read about and imagine. I also loved the character of Martin, William's friend at Cambridge as a chorister, a boy who was totally different to William, but a best friend we all need.

Such a good character driven novel and I loved working out William's issues with him as I read it.

I've found this a very difficult book to review because there were bits I did enjoy and bits I disliked. Ultimately, after finishing it on netgalley I decided to return my pre-ordered special edition because it just doesn't sit well with me that someone can make profit from a disaster such as Aberfan unless they have a very good reason.

I need to mention that although the author has done lots of research and spoken to people who were there and visited Aberfan, she has no personal connection to Aberfan, or Wales. She was 3 when the Aberfan disaster happened.

This is what I struggled with the most. The small parts of the book written about the Aberfan disaster in 1966 were very emotional to read. They were handled sensitively and respectfully and I am aware of what research the author has done. I like that a light has been shone on the work of the volunteer embalmers, something I would never have known about if it wasn't for this book.

But I do not feel the Aberfan disaster was essential to telling this story, which was about a young embalmer William. After the first 10% where William volunteers to help at Aberfan as a newly qualified embalmer, it isn't really mentioned again until towards the end of the book. There is a PTSD link somewhere towards the end but I don't think this was really explored enough.

With much of the story focused on William's time as a chorister at Cambridge, his relationship with his mother, Martin and Gloria, I don't see why this is marketed as "The Aberfan book" other than to just sell more copies. Which makes me feel uncomfortable.

In general I found William a difficult main character to warm to and some events difficult to wrap my head around. Some parts of the middle of the story I found boring and frustrating.

This is by no means a bad book and I feel I am in the minority here as a lot of people have raved about it, even named it their book of 2022! But this is why I felt I had to speak up. If you want to learn about the Aberfan disaster, Google it. Or read one of the non fiction books written by people who were there or affected by it. If this book is the first time you're hearing about it, don't let your learning end there. This was a real tragedy that has had a lasting impact on Wales. 28 adults died. 116 children died. The people of Aberfan deserve our hearts and respect.

The story is based over differing timelines moving backwards and forwards revealing the events in the life of William, a newly qualified embalmer. My preference was for the times we met the adult William as opposed to William as a boy. I just found his time as a child at boarding school depressed me.
The tragedy at Aberfan was sensitively dealt with and was very moving.
A compassionate and moving book.

I loved this book, I found William's story to be so well written I couldn't put it down. The tale skips about with timelines so his life is unravelled to us, we find out about key significant events that deeply affect him and have consequences on choices he makes later on. William gets a place at a boarding school for choristers and some of his early life there forms the background for how he deals with the events at Aberfan, which of course affect him deeply. There are quite a few themes in this book and I felt it was sensitively written and very well researched. Interesting insights into the work of an embalmer and the life of a schoolboy chorister! The impact of music on memories and emotions really shone through. I wasn't too sure, from the blurb, if it was going to be too heartbreaking but there is a lot of hope and humanity in there. Totally absorbing, I loved it and highly recommend.

A unique, unusual, beautiful book. Heartbreaking at times but ripe with redemption. William was destined for choristry with his beautiful voice, his mother's dream but the early death of his father and difficult experiences at school led to an estrangement with his mother. The novel starts with him as a young embalmer called to help at the tragedy of Aberfan. Moving and authentic attention to detail from the author here. William's experiences with the lost children have a profound effect on his relationships and paralyse his communication with his loved ones. At times frustrating, William is an unusual character in a very unusual job. Beautifully written, we are taken backwards and forwards in time as the story is revealed to us.

A beautifully written book that literally took my breath away.

A tale of tragedy and love, desire and pain.

I sobbed my heart out but loved every minute. I may just read it again straight away.

Utter perfection

Highly recommended 5 stars from me

A Terrible Kindness recalls a day in October 1966 when coal and mud slid down a Welsh mountain side and engulfed the school in the village of Aberfan. I was a day seared in my memory because I was nine years old — the same age as many of the children who died — and like them grew up surrounded by coal mines.

More than 100 children and scores of adults, were killed in the disaster, dug out by relatives and volunteers who worked tirelessly for days even when they knew there was no hope.

This tragic event is portrayed vividly and poignantly in Jo Browning Wroe’s debut novel.

On the night of the tragedy, nineteen-year-old William Lavery is being feted at a posh dinner and dance for members of the Institute of Embalmers. He’s just become the youngest ever embalmer in the country and tipped to be one of the profession’s best practitioners. But the festivities are brought to an abrupt end by an urgent appeal for volunteers to immediately travel to Wales and tend to the victims of a horrific incident.

It will be William’s first job as an embalmer and what he experiences over the next few nights in the makeshift mortuary in Aberfan, re-awakens memories of his own childhood trauma. As he tends gently to the bodies of small children dug out from the slurry and witnesses their parent’s grief, “the flotsam and jetsam of his own life is washed up by the tidal wave of Aberfan’s grief.”

Throughout the book we’re given hints that some calamity befell William when he was a boy, causing him to leave Cambridge abruptly without completing a coveted scholarship scholarship at a university choir school . It’s not until the final chapters do we learn what happened, and why this has caused William so much anguish over the years.

What we discover is a tale of a childhood blighted by the death of his father when he was eight years old. William’s mother is determined that her son will not get caught up in the family’s undertaking business but instead will pursue a career in music. But her plans are thrown into chaos and the relationship with Williams is destroyed because she cannot overcome her jealousy over the boy’s relationship with two other people, her dead husband’s twin brother Robert and Robert’s partner Howard.

A Terrible Kindness is a novel about grief and forgiveness; of misplaced love and decisions that have long-lasting consequences. It’s strong on setting and the portrayal of anguish. The scenes in Aberfan are handled particularly well; portraying the immensity of the task faced by the volunteer embalmers as they wrestled to maintain professionalism in the face of unbelievable tragedy.

These chapters could so easily have been either mawkishly sentimental or too graphic but I thought Wroe skillfully avoided both traps. Yes there are descriptions of the practices followed by an embalmer, but they are not gratuitously detailed. Nor are there explicit details of the injuries suffered by the children. What we do get is a deep sense of the sensitivity, almost reverence, shown with the arrival of each small frame.

Despite the opening. A Terrible Kindness is not a novel about the Aberfan disaster or necessarily its aftermath. Most of the novel is actually occupied with William’s attempts to get his life back on track. In between, there are sections which rewind to his time at Cambridge where he formed a close bond with another chorister and fulfilled his potential as a singer.

I didn’t fully buy into the premise of the book about the source of William’s inability to deal with his emotions. The narrative puts it down to one event that occurred when he was about 14 years. Certainly it would have been a distressing incident for a young, impressionable boy but it didn’t seem realistic to me that it was so traumatic that it caused him to stop singing entirely.

What I did enjoy however was the way Jo Browning Wroe showed the power of music to provide solace and an escape from suffering. We’re drawn into the world of music through the famous Welsh song Myfanwy about unfulfilled love and Allegri’s setting of the Miserere and their power is evoked so beautifully I felt compelled to seek out some recordings.

The restorative power of music is most clearly shown however when William revisits Cambridge to discover his friend is the organiser of a choir formed from the city’s homeless population. William challenges the idea of men who have nothing being asked to sing about love and loss but his friend’s belief is that these are exactly the sentiments the men should be able to voice.

A Terrible Kindness is ultimately a tale of humanity, showing how love and compassion endures even in the most difficult of situations.

This is a quite beautiful book, compassionate and tender. It brought me to tears at one point. There were a couple of little points I wondered about, for instance, did people talk about 'logistics' when discussing funeral arrangements back in 1970-ish? Other than that it's well worth reading.

Wow ..I absolutely loved this beautiful tender story. Set in England in the mid sixties this book introduces us to Willian Lavery who at nineteen , has just graduated as an embalmer at the Thames College of Embalming. On the night of his graduation dinner word filters through that following a terrible tragedy in Aberfan in Wales, embalmers are urgently needed to help with bodies that are mounting as a result of this harrowing accident. William immediately volunteers to go and this story shows us how the aftermath of such an event has left a huge shadow on Williams life.
This is a gentle, poignant story filled with a cast of wonderful characters. From Williams mother, through to his school friend Martin, these are all wonderful warm people. While the subject matter of this book is heartbreaking it tells it’s story with great sympathy and understanding. This book is something special and I can not recommend it enough. For me #ATerribleKindness is without doubt a 5⭐️ read.
Many thanks to #NetGalley and the publishers #FaberFaber for an ARC of this book.

A wonderfully moving tale of life, death and complex relationships. The story of William begins with him volunteering as a newly qualified embalmer to assist with task of preparing the deceased, mainly children, at the Aberfan disaster. We are then taken on a journey through time to his childhood and teenage years coping with the death of his own father and strained relations between his mother and uncle to whom he is very close. As a young adult William suffers in his life due to these and other important events in his childhood and we see how he tries to deal with them.
This was a very moving book and was exceptionally well written by the author. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance copy to review.

This book begins with the Aberfan disaster in 1966 where William, a young but compassionate newly qualified embalmer volunteers. This experience will have a significant impact on William and this book reflects on both his personal history and his feelings from Aberfan as he moves forward.

This was an incredible book, and it was clear that the author had spent time researching both the Aberfan disaster and the work of embalming as it came over very authentically.

This was a very cleverly written book, and I loved the way in which William's personal history was gradually revealed to build up a picture of the young man who had been shaped by his time as a child chorister at Cambridge, his family history and Aberfan. The book was very sensitively written, both in relation to Aberfan and the embalming work and as a consequence a truly heartbreaking read.

Whilst the setting was authentic, this was also true of the characters who were well developed and interesting and I was keen to learn more about them. This was a book that could have been too melancholy but it was also warm and witty particularly in relation to some of the scenes at Cambridge.

Ultimately whilst heartbreaking at times, this is a beautifully written, warm and sensitive book which I found deeply evocative and I will be thinking about it for some time.

Thanks to the the publisher for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

When a coal tip collapses on Aberfan‘s Junior School in October 1966, newly qualified embalmer William Lavery rushes to the scene to help. Tending to the children, he hears Allegri’s Miserere on the radio and it brings back flashbacks of his childhood, when he was a chorister in Cambridge and the culmination of events that led him to stop singing and severe contact with his mother and best friend Martin. Memories of both these times shape his future and haunt him day and night.
A beautifully written and well researched debut by Jo Browning Wroe, exploring the subjects of love, relationships, guilt and death with sensitivity and insight.
Tears rolled down my face on a number of occasions as William tries to overcome his demons with the support of his loving wife Gloria and uncle Robert.
With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

The tragedy of Aberfan is so great that a work of fiction using it as a backdrop for part of the story has real problems. Nothing else in William’s life could have the same impact on me so the jumping about in time had no dramatic effect but rather was simply annoying.

Following a tragic incident in 1966 William offers to help prepare the bodies that have perished. Having already faced demons in his past this incident will haunt him for a long time. Suffering from PTSD the book looks at how these events from the past affect all his relationships. Whilst the content might put you off, the author has written compassionately.

It is October 1966 and William Lavery is having the night of his life at his first black-tie do. It's one day after his graduation as an embalmer. But, as the evening unfolds, news hits of a landslide at a coal mine in Aberfan. It has buried a school full of children. William decides he must act, so he stands and volunteers to attend. It will be his first job as an embalmer, and it will be one he never forgets.
His work that night forces him to think about the little boy he was, and the losses he has worked so hard to forget. William's father died when he was just a boy, leaving him behind with a mother who was only barely keeping it together. Because of his beautiful voice, William has made it to Cambridge at age 10 to become a chorister, but it all seems to come crashing down from there. Will William ever find peace within himself?

This is what A Terrible Kindness is about. The title refers to the work William did at Aberfan. The many children's bodies he attended to, making them as proper as he could before the parents came in to identify them. A terrible kindness that came on top of an already troubled life and that caused William to derail fully.
Author Jo Browning Wroe has done a great job portraying William's many challenges, turning him into a warm, young man and at other times the most annoying person I could have ever met. It's safe to say that I did not quite like A Terrible Kindness's main character. That, however, made the story feel real to me, like it really did happen like this.

I've read reviews in which Wroe was critized for using the horrors Aberfan endured to further her own novel and career. For me, living in another country alltogether, it doesn't feel like that. And even if she'd used something out of my country's history, I wouldn't be angry. I'd say every author should be free to draw upon whatever inspiration he or she could find, as long as it's done in a respectful way. I felt A Terrible Kindness was done in a respectful way.

A Terrible Kindness gives you an intriguing insight into the works of embalming, into the history of Aberfan and last but not least into the life of chorister boys at Cambridge. It's a beautiful historical novel that had me whimpering and smiling at the same time.

“Just because they’ve lost everything, doesn’t mean that have stopped being human.”

On October 21, 1966, a mound of coal waste slid down a hillside and engulfed the Pantglas Junior School in Aberfan, and several of the houses. The impact killed 116 children and 28 adults. Jo Browning Wroe retells this story so gently, and with love; it does not mask the terrible tragedy, yet it is so respectful of the memories of that fateful day. William is a third generation embalmer, and in his first job after graduation. William’s job is to identify the victims: he gathers what remains of their clothes, holds them outside the makeshift morgue, waiting for a parent to claim their child. He treats each body with care, love and attention. He sings to them. And he only realises the traumatic impact of his work in Aberfan when he tries to think about a future for himself and his new wife, Gloria; and with that, William also has to reconcile with his past, part of the journey to how he has ended up where he has.
The backstory of William in Cambridge, with the relationship with his mother and Uncle Robert and Howard is beautifully written. It softly explores the controlling ways of his mother, and the relationship between Robert and Howard in a time where homosexuality was not accepted, and the death of his father. It provides a glimpse into this teen years in the Cambridge Choir, and all the things that Williams was striving for and their build up to the memories that finally come into the open.

There is so much care taken with each relationship you read about, from William and his mother, to William and his Cambridge Choir friends martin. We learn enough about them to feel a closeness with them. Even among the darkest days and memories, there is always an element of kindness and peace. There is a lot of loss and grief throughout this book, but what emerges in the kindness of strangers, family and friends. There is so much compassion in the writing that is hard not to be touched when reading it.

“Et secundum miltitudinem misarationum tuarrun, dele iniquitatem meam.”

A Terrible Kindness is a beautifully written novel about love, loss, grief and everything in-between.

William is a newly qualified embalmer, following in his Uncle and Late Father's footsteps, when the function he is at is interrupted, asking for volunteers to help at Aberfan. He is having the time of his life, at his first black-tie function alongside Gloria who he is in love with - but hasn't told yet.

It's October 1966, and Aberfan primary school has just been buried following the catastrophic collapse of colliery spoil tip no 7. The village is in shock, it's children dead or missing.

William's job at first is to help identify the victims by extracting their clothing and then holding the item aloft where the parents of the missing are gathered, waiting for someone to claim the garment and their child.

He quickly moves on to what he knows best, embalming. The work is relentless, so many bodies to get through, and the work becomes harder, the victims more gravely injured as time goes on. William thinks little of it at the time, he is there to do a job, a job he excels at.

It isn't until he returns home that he realises his life may never be the same again. Still young himself, the Aberfan disaster forces William to think about his troubled past and consider events that he has tried hard to forget, as he tries to look toward the future and whatever that may hold.

This is a superb debut, and I can't wait to see what this author does next.