Rarely have I been so moved by the opening chapters of a book it was heart rending.
I cannot believe this is a debut novel it is quite an extraordinary read & writing at its best.
You may find it a difficult read in places because of the very emotional content it contains.
The opening chapters covers the story of a young William who is a newly qualified embalmer.
He is called on to help with the awful disaster that occurred In Aberfan in 1966 when a terrible landslide killed so many people of which were mainly children.
It is gruesome and heartbreaking & the author creates the scenes so vividly.
How will this affect William going forward as it’s bound to leave its mark.
The book then takes us back in time to when William is Ten .
His father is dead & he is going to Cambridge to become a chorister as he has a beautiful voice.
The book takes us on a journey of the various stages of his troubled life.
From all that happens in his chorister days to the reasons he chooses to become an embalmer.
There are key points throughout that are hinted at but only start to get revealed towards the end.
We start to get a glimpse of what can happen when we don’t open up & we bottle up up all those emotions.
I was fascinated about the procedures & details about embalming & was pleased to hear it was done with sensitivity.
Having worked as a chapel verger at a crematorium for a number of years overseeing funerals I was aware of some of the things.
This is a heartbreaking yet compassionate story that really held me I could not put it down.
Well researched I found it to be a thoroughly interesting read that tackled a lot of difficult themes & issues.
I would definitely like to read more from this author this book was a compelling read for me.

This was a difficult book to read in places because of the emotional content, not because it is badly written. The story opening is harrowing and life- changing for the main character: William.

William, as a young, newly- trained embalmer, is called to help at the terrible disaster which occurred in Aberfan in 1966. His maturity and compassion through this entire section of the book is commendable and I was fascinated by the gruesomeness and heartbreaking task that William had to undertake. I know a little about this disaster, but could so clearly picture the scenes through this book that I felt like I could have been there. However, against this heart-break there is a 'contained-ness' about William that is unnerving. As the book progresses you move between various timelines as his full story unfolds. His childhood has not been easy and his job as an embalmer is something which he has undertaken against his mother's wishes.

The book is less about Aberfan than I expected but I was not disappointed as there is so much more to uncover. William's father had died while he was young and his mother's relationship with her homosexual brother-in-law, who was also her husband's identical twin, did not make for an easy existence. William is discovered to have a beautiful voice and is selected to become a chorister at Cambridge. I loved this part of the story which felt authentic as I work in Oxford and could easily image these scenes. His time at school is hard and exacting but his friendship with Martin and the magical experiences of singing as part of a choir balance this out. But life is never simple, and his actions tear apart his fragile family bonds and set William on a very different path for the next stage of his life: one away from singing, school, Martin, and all that he holds dear.

As a young man, William is attracted to Gloria, the daughter of the family he was lodging with while he studied to be an embalmer. Even their relationship is fraught with complications and is threatened by the introduction of Ray, a fellow student on William's course. Gloria is one of the most understanding, patient characters I have ever met and she puts up with a lot from William in the course of this book.

It is hard to explain just how complex a character the author created in William. He appears calm and collected, yet actually is frozen by a number of traumatic events. His pride and care as an embalmer are truly heart-warming, though it is clear that the dead do not ask difficult questions and their presence is preferable because of this. 'A Terrible Kindness' tracks Williams journey through life and all of its ups and downs. It is gritty and real set in places you cannot help but recognise. The rhythm of the book is slow and leisurely, but stick with it because all of the characters are compelling! Four and a half stars from me!

This was so unexpected; I found it hugely emotional and very very human. I previously had no idea about the embalmers of Aberfan but I'm really glad that they now have been given the spotlight they deserve for the incredible and difficult work they did there. Very well researched. The various storylines across the various stages of William's life were woven together really well, and I particularly liked reading about his time as a chorister and his time spent at Martin's house. Definitely less time spent in Aberfan than I anticipated but it all came together really beautifully actually.

Quite a unique read and certainly harrowing and emotional.
It didn't feature Aberfan throughout like I expected but more the impact of it after on the young life of embalmer William and his ongoing trauma through his relationship with his mother after the death of his father when he was 8.
At times I felt a bit lost especially during the middle of the book when time starts jumping back and forth and years jump ahead in the story but I understand why this happened I just felt I needed a chapter title or clear explanation this was several years on etc rather than figuring it out after a few sentences.
William is a very intense character that I'm not sure I truly got to know but I did enjoy the development of his relationship with Gloria and Martin.
The parts that detail the procedures and practices of embalming were fascinating and informative.

On 21 October 1966, the primary school at Aberfan in Wales was engulfed in slag from the slippage of a coal mining dump on the hill behind the town. In total 116 children and 28 adults were killed that day in the school and nearby houses. Nineteen year old William Lavery, a recently graduated embalmer, now a member of his family firm of funeral directors, an annual dinner dance, when the call went out for embalmers to volunteer to help with preparing bodies for burial. William rushed to Wales with a car load of embalming supplies and chid sized coffins to find not just dead bodies of little children, but bodies covered in slag that had to be cleaned first so parents could identify them. As time went on, the bodies became more mangled, making them a horrific sight not only for the parents but also the undertakers.

William would suffer from the trauma of that day for years afterwards, with nightmares and visions of mangled children, which would affect his relationships with women and young children. What made it even harder for William, was that he was already bearing scars from his childhood before he went to Aberfan. His father died when he was eight and after being encouraged by his mother to develop his musical talents rather than go into the family business, he was accepted into a chorister school in Cambridge two years later. However, his musical career came to an abrupt and traumatic end, causing William to sever ties with his best friend Martin as well as with his mother, Evelyn and to later train as an embalmer and join Robert and Howard in the family business he has come to love.

This is a well written debut novel telling a heartfelt story on one man's coming of age after some difficult times. It wasn't so much about the Aberfan disaster as about the effects of PTSD on those who are involved in recovering bodies after such disasters. I felt the novel would have benefitted by dealing with the Aberfan disaster more sensitively by integrating it into the rest of the novel, rather than putting it aside until the end of the novel, when the aftermath and subsequent inquiry had such a big impact on the UK at the time.

I enjoyed the role of music in the book, as redemption for both William and Martin. As well as William’s gentle, caring nature, I also loved Martin’s cheeky character and the man he became. The novel really made me feel William’s pain both at losing his musical future and the PTSD he suffered after Aberfan. I admired the author’s gentle touch in dealing with William’s issues but did feel he was somewhat immature and stubborn in his relationships with his mother and his wife Gloria, while everyone around him seemed to be so tolerant and forgiving of his behaviour for so long. This is a very original book which has managed to bring together the diverse topics of the Aberfan disaster, the life of a boy chorister and embalming as a career choice and meld them into a delightful novel.

'A Terrible Kindness' had an amazing beginning and ending, but the rest was not as amazing. It opens with scenes from the Aberfan tip disaster, as the main character William is sent there to assist with the dead bodies. The rest of the book then goes through the rest of William's life - his childhood, his time as a Cambridge chorister, how he became an embalmer, and his marriage. They are told out of order, which I found really confusing and hard to see any character growth. I think if it had been told in chronological order it would have been more impactful, rather than starting out with the most emotional scene in the book. William was also deeply unlikeable, and is terrible to many people in his life. It was also hard to find the links between his life events, they are interesting but so hard to see the relationship between being a chorister and becoming an embalmer. There is also a key event hinted at throughout the novel that is quite underwhelming once revealed.

I received a free e-book from Netgalley in exchange for a review.

A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Rowe
Pub Date 20th January 2022
It is October 1966, and William Lavery is having the night of his life at his first black-tie do. But, as the evening unfolds, news hits of a landslide at a coal mine. It has buried a school: Aberfan.
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 will force him to think about the little boy he was and the losses he has worked so hard to forget. But compassion can have surprising consequences because - as William discovers - giving so much to others can sometimes help us heal ourselves.
This is a brave subject matter for a debut novel.
Aberfan is still etched deep in many Welsh peoples hearts and minds.
The story follows William Lavery, who is a newly qualified embalmer. William went to help the residents of Aberfan as the horrific landslide of 26th October 1966 occurred. William's life story is portrayed before, during and after the disaster. It is an incredibly touching read, full of despair, devotion and hope.
I want to thank NetGalley, Faber and Faber Ltd and author Jo Browning Rowe for a pre-publication copy to review.

January and I’ve already had an “if you read one book this year” recommendation to give.
The books opens with William qualifying from embalming college and going straight to help at the terrible tragedy that was Aberfan, an experience that will shape his life. This part of the book is so brilliantly written it’s horrifically captivating. William is a sensitive troubled individual, and as the book moves back and forth between different timelines we uncover what happened to him. As we follow his story we’re given a glimpse into the life of an embalmer (fascinating), a social history of the times and an uncomfortable view of what happens when we bottle up our feelings and don’t confront them. This is a beautifully written book and definitely deserves to be up there in the ‘book of the year’ category. A book that will stay with you.

A beautiful and compassionate story of the profound effect an experience can have on an individual. Told with patience and sensitivity, the use of a British disaster as a key moment in the novel brings realism to the narrative and really makes you care about the protagonist and all those he comes into contact with. This novel has stayed with me.

This was a very moving and emotional read about William Lavery and how he is affected by, and how he deals with the traumas and tragedy that he suffers. Losing his father has a profound affect on him and deeply affects his relationship with his mother. He trains as an embalmer and is brought to Aberfan to help with the embalming after the disaster that takes so many lives. It’s interesting to read how such a disaster might affect people who were only there momentarily. This is a well researched and fascinating story. I found the various elements of the story a bit distracting but enjoyed it. Thank you to Jo Browning Wroe, NetGalley and Faber & Faber for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

A Terrible Kindness -Book Review
🎼Love,Loss and facing your fears!!🎼

A Terrible Kindness is a standalone novel by Jo Browning Wroe.The story focuses on the life of Embalmer William Lavery and how facing the terrible tragedy of the Aberfan disaster eventually helps him tackle past traumatic events he has buried for years.

I really liked in the character of William,the way his life was written felt so real and you really felt you were going on a journey with him and facing his past with him.
I also really liked cheeky chappy Martin and how with his schemes he brought some light relief to the story.
My favourite part of book were the flashback chapters about William’s life as a chorister as they gave you an insight into why William grew up to the confused and frightened young man he was.
I thought the whole book was written extremely well and tackled a host of difficult themes entwined into the one story.
This book was definitely an emotional rollercoaster,but one you wanted to see through to the end as you were rooting for William all the way through.
I would throughly recommend this book to anyone who likes emotive or historical fiction,and I will definitely read more books by this author
Bookworm rating 🎼🎼🎼🎼

Heartbreaking, beautiful, harrowing, painful - this gorgeously written and richly layered book follows William, a young man who has just qualified as an embalmer, who is one of the many called upon to help when the Aberfan disaster leaves an entire school buried under a landslide in a Welsh mining village. Through the course of a devastating night, the bodies of the killed children are brought to the embalmers, who carefully prepare them to be identified by their distraught parents. The trauma of the event stays with William long afterwards, shaping his life.

The book also reaches back into his childhood, tracing his damaged relationship with his mother, his lost school friends, his abandoned dream of becoming a chorister. Ultimately, it's a book about self-examination and compassion, and, as devastating as it is, I couldn't recommend it more.

The opening chapters dealing with the Aberfan disaster are absolutely gut wrenching (I blinked back tears several times), but so gripping you can't look away. My attention immediately began to wane when we moved on to the next section and began the meandering journey back and forth through the life of William, a character who isn't all that pleasant to spend time with. Like many other reviewers I expected much more of the book to deal with Aberfan and I don't think the book does it justice, however well written the chapters devoted to it are. (I do think we were all slightly misled by the blurb in that respect though so I'm trying not to let it affect my overall rating too much!)

A Terrible Kindness starts off with the Aberfan disaster and we follow William, as an embalmer choosing to go and help out on the ground. This acts as a flashpoint and it catapults the reader into the life of William, both as he was younger and the journey of him growing up but also how events shaped him as a person.

It was a very interesting book to read and I definitely enjoyed it. I would have liked the book to have been more focused on the initial part of the story where we followed WIliam as an embalmer and his point of view of a disaster, as I did find this part of the story the most compelling and interesting. As a person who isn’t from the UK, I would have liked to know more about the disaster itself, with more focus on that part of the story. However, I do understand that that wasn’t the book that the author wanted to write.

Thank you to Netgalley and Faber & Faber for sending me an advanced copy

I was really excited to get the opportunity to read and review ~ATerribleKindess via @NetGalley as the book description sounded so different and thought provoking. I was not disappointed.
This is a book that tells the story of an ordinary man who was involved in an extraordinary event, which had an impact on him for decades afterwards. The bulk of the story is not about Aberfan, but about William and his childhood, and how he ended up working as an undertaker/embalmer. It is beautifully written, extraordinarily moving and insightful, with it's focus on family, friendships and loss. I am really glad I read it and will be recommending it to friends to read and book clubs.

A Terrible Kindness Jo Browning Wroe
What an amazing debut! This book was so wonderfully and compassionately written that I did have to check that it was her first book! There were so many difficult issues and life experiences that the different characters went through, and the author wrote this all so considerately and empathically that at times I had to remind myself that this was a book.
The start of the book left me in tears as the story of William Lavery, a 19-year-old newly qualified embalmer volunteered to help at the Aberfan disaster, and the effect that this then had on him. That this one act of kindness was the catalyst for his world as he knew it, or thought he knew it, to completely change.
The narrative switches almost seamlessly between the different parts of William’s life and builds the back story and helps us to understand William and how his upbringing by a controlling mother and with his ‘Uncles’ and their special relationship, which didn’t conform to 1960’s attitudes towards sexuality had affected him, the decisions he had to make and the outcome from all of this.
I highly recommend this book, as I mentioned above it is so brilliantly written, with fantastic setting descriptions, but is has also been so very well researched from embalming techniques, medical terminology, choral works, choirs and family life amid the 1950's and the 1960's and with this amount of detail this all adds to the overall feel of the book. This book deals with so many different topics, kindness, sexuality, friendships and relationships. Yes, at times it was hard to read, and I did find myself reaching for the tissues on more than one occasion, but I think that is what makes this book so very special, is that it hasn’t shied away from the difficult subjects, instead it has faced them head on and made us all realise that life isn’t always an easy ride.
I was lucky enough to receive an early proof of this book from @tandemcollectiveuk and @faberbooks and I felt truly privileged to be an early reader. Thanks also to Netgalley for an e-copy too.

This is published on the 20th January, and if you haven’t already, go and pre-order it now!

The book opens with William at an evening event for embalmers with the beautiful Gloria. Not many books deal with the lives of embalmers/ undertakers so this was original in itself.
An emergency call comes through for embalmers to go to help at the scene of the tragic Aberfan disaster.
Coming from Wales as I do, this is sadly part of the national consciousness and the author doesn't shy away from the horror of it.

The book then moves back and forward in time (not in a way that you lose track) to detail another event that was also traumatic for William and which marked him irrevocably. .Martin had a close relationship with his Mum and won a music scholarship to a cathedral school. Here he is befriended by the warm older boy Martin. There are some very evocative scenes of William spending time with Martin's family that are reminiscent of the warmth Harry feels with the Weasley family.

A crucial solo provides an opportunity for William to show his unique talent, but will he take it?

The novel doesn't settle for easy answers. It's not a case of "instant healing" after the traumatic events but a slow realisation and "building bridges gradually. There are no trite answers, but healing is possible if it can be faced with an acceptance of pain and the courage to face up to yourself.

The power of music is woven throughout the book, as is the true meaning of love and understanding. There is real warmth to be found and wisdom too. It's a really sensitive and nuanced book which never moves in predictable ways.

A great "supporting cast" too in this thoughtful book. I also hope it will raise awareness about the Aberfan disaster. If there is one thing this book teaches us it's respect and love for the dead who William cares for so tenderly. He needs to offer the same to the living.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Wow ! What a moving and emotional read to end the year with. I really didn't know what to expect from the synopsis of A Terrible Kindness but the author has written one of the most original and hopeful novels I read during 2021. It begins when William , a newly qualified embalmer volunteers during the 1966 Aberfan disaster. The novel moves backwards and forwards from the time following Aberfan to William's childhood as a chorister after the death of his father. This is one of the most beautifully written novels I've read this year and although I found William's behaviour a little frustrating at times, I was rooting for him throughout. The cast of characters are beautifully drawn as is the period setting. It reminded me a little of Patrick Gale, an author whose writing I adore. Highly recommended.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.

A strong opening to this novel sees 19-year-old William Lavery, freshly qualified as an embalmer, volunteer to help out in the immediate aftermath of the 1966 Aberfan disaster, when a primary school was buried in a colliery slagheap landslide. The experience of dealing with all the little broken bodies, and witnessing the unimaginable grief in the village, leaves him terrified to have children of his own and has psychological repercussions for many years.

The story flips back and forth in time, taking us back to the early death of William's father and his years as a chorister at King's College Cambridge, and forward to his estrangement from his mother over her attitude to his homosexual uncle and his partner, and the early years of his own marriage. Throughout, music plays an integral part - as a choral singer myself and aunt to a cathedral chorister nephew, this was an aspect of the novel I was very drawn to.

This book made for compulsive reading, but in the same sort of way as a bar of milk chocolate with a caramel centre makes for compulsive eating - it left nothing to the imagination and had little emotional complexity. I found William's character a bit of an immature, colourless damp squib and didn't really understand why everyone he encountered loved him so much - to me he came across as weak, self-centred, pig-headed and emotionally repressed for much of the book, only finally, maybe, starting to grow up at the very end. It is a good and engrossing story, but one which is told rather simplistically and in a way that leaves no room for the reader to fill in gaps. In particular, I found the readiness of multiple people whom William had shut out for years, to embrace him with a smile of ready unconditional forgiveness, rather unrealistic. It is a bit of a fairy tale really, and ultimately rather unsatisfying.

Wow! This book has gone into my 'recommend and keep' folder on my Kindle. One of the best books I have read this year.
As I began reading, my impression was not so high. I thought 'what a strange topic for a novel', embalming and a well known National disaster. However the book is so well written and the subject matters handled so sensitively. In fact there are many issues raised including bullying, mental health, childhood grief and parental love. This all makes it sound like a heavy read but really it isn't. There is also so much love and hope throughout the book and as I've already said, it is so well handled and beautifully posed. I loved it!