The Gold Skull Murders

"What if he'd chosen differently? What if all that had happened could have made him a bigger person? If each disaster had been a crossroads at which he could have taken a better path? It's too painful to dwell on."

A Terrible Kindness is the first novel by British author Jo Browning Wroe. In a swanky hotel ballroom in Nottingham, in October 1966, as nineteen-year-old William Lavery celebrates his graduation as the youngest embalmer in the country, an urgent call goes out for volunteers. A horrific mine collapse in the Welsh town of Aberfan has taken an awful toll, with many children amongst the dead. Embalmers are desperately needed.

William does not hesitate. A passionate kiss from the student nurse who has captured his heart sends him off on this mercy mission. But William has no idea what the long-ranging effects of this charitable act will be.

Although he comes from an undertaking family, that he would train as an embalmer was never a given. A gifted singer with a stunning voice, William knew his mother was fiercely determined that he should follow a musical career. Exactly what his father had wanted for him was never stated before his premature death when William was just eight.

"Since his father died two years ago, William has had to tighten up his insides and work hard to cheer his mother up" but at Cambridge, he made a real friend: "he is relieved that it seems all he needs to do to be liked by Martin is to be himself."

How then, after four years as a lauded Cambridge chorister, did his career path change so radically? How could he be estranged from his beloved mother and not have sung a single note in five years?

Browning Wroe easily evokes both setting and era with gorgeous descriptive prose and popular culture references. Her characters, realistically flawed, are worth investing in as they develop and change over the years: a mother so mired in grief and jealousy she is blinded to freely offered love; a boy too consumed by humiliation and resentment to show loyalty; a young man so traumatised he cannot look ahead in hope.

Supporting these are friends and family whose patience, acceptance, devotion and love may be unremarked upon but is ever-present. Eyes may well up and throats may clog with emotion in later scenes: only the hard of heard will fail to be moved and uplifted by this exceptional debut novel.

This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Faber & Faber