A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe

 
From Goodreads

Tonight nineteen-year-old William Lavery is dressed for success, his first black-tie do. It's the Midlands Chapter of the Institute of Embalmers Ladies' Night Dinner Dance, and William is taking Gloria in her sequined evening gown. He can barely believe his luck.

But as the guests sip their drinks and smoke their post-dinner cigarettes a telegram delivers news of a tragedy. An event so terrible it will shake the nation. It is October 1966 and a landslide at a coal mine has buried a school: Aberfan.

William decides he must act, so he stands and volunteers to attend. It will be his first job, and will be - although he's yet to know it - a choice that threatens to sacrifice his own happiness. His work that night will force him to think about the little boy he was, and the losses he has worked so hard to bury. But compassion can have surprising consequences, because - as William discovers - giving so much to others can sometimes help us heal ourselves.

My thoughts

This is a book that I grabbed from BorrowBox the digital lending side of my local Library.  I am not sure how I came across it now, but I am glad that I did.  Looking on my NetGalley account I can see that I spotted it on there, but was declined for it, so maybe that is why I looked for a copy elsewhere to read.

Since reading the story I have read some reviews by others that have been mixed in their ratings and views.  I however, give this a 4 stars.  I found it a well written story that was loosely based on the Aberfan disaster back in the 60's that devastated a Welsh community when a slag heap slipped and engulfed a school in a village, killing many children and adults.

The story centers around a young man William who decides to take up a position in the family undertaking Business, as a graduated embalmer he offers to be a volunteer after the Aberfan disaster. What he sees and has to deal with will sadly have repercussions on him for the rest of his life.  

To find out how William is affected by this sad tragic event, grab a copy of this for yourself.  Some readers have been saddened to see that a story has been written about this, but in the past other writers have written about real life events in a loosely fictional way, it's not a novel idea in any way at all.  Perhaps, we readers should let other readers read books that may interest them and if a book is of no interest to us then don't go anywhere near it.  

I feel that this would make a great reading group read.