I know one Puritan family in Wales who had thus stood steadfastly against having a television in their house, but whose resolve crumbled in the face of the availability of immediate, live coverage. In the case of his mother, the incident that took William away from his music career and ended his relationship with his mother is given a great deal of buildup. A colliery spoil tip collapsed after weeks of heavy rain, forming a slurry that slipped downhill and smothered houses but worst of all a school. When a book makes me cry within the first chapter… it just… gahh… I don’t think I will be able to properly convey just how stunning A Terrible Kindness is.

I really felt I was accompanying him on his journey as he worked through his conflicting and difficult emotions. How marvellous it is when a book broadens your horizons, takes you to places you would never envisage yourself going, and provides you with an enjoyable reading experience all at the same time. Living in Wales, this is still a very sensitive subject, and I'm not sure this has the sensitivity that those passages need. 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. While taking Gloria around Cambridge, William bumps into Martin again; he later embarks on a redemptive trip to Aberfan.

A celebration is in full swing when news of the terrible Aberfan tragedy is delivered and the embalmers are asked to volunteer their services. It's about a boy growing up, adults who make mistakes, and how there's always life worth living on the other side of it all. And the blurb of A Terrible Kindness leans heavily on Aberfan, making you think this is historical fiction about the disaster.

It only tells me you know the rest of your novel is not as strong as those banging opening chapters. This disaster is still raw for both the country and the families affected by such a horrendous disaster.

Just hours after the multiple waves of black sludge engulf Aberfan’s primary school, 19-year-old William Lavery is enjoying his first proper grown-up night out. No one knows what the future holds apart from that none of us are going to make it out of here alive, so grab happiness whilst you can. Homosexuality couldn’t come out of the closet in 1966 and it’s a lingering awkwardness between Evelyn and Robert.

For anyone not familiar, an avalanche of coal waste on a rain soaked mountain engulfed a town and primary school in Aberfan, Wales in 1966, killing 144 people, the vast majority of whom were young children.The book is also I think about characters (in particular William and his mother) that try to simplify difficult and complex issues into their life into a single point of focus and resentment, and adopt a policy of avoidance as well as blame rather than forgiveness (of themselves and others). Horizons were broadened when I learnt about the 1966 Aberfan tragedy which resulted in the deaths of 116 children and 28 adults. Time to clamp his defences back down before the flotsam and jetsam of his own life is washed up by the tidal wave of Aberfan’s grief; his father’s death, the abrupt end to his chorister days, the rift with his mother, with Martin. The writing was skilful even if it was third person present narration throughout, and I enjoyed the sixties setting and associated musical references. From Nobel Laureates Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter to theatre greats Tom Stoppard and Alan Bennett to rising stars Polly Stenham and Florian Zeller, Faber Drama presents the very best theatre has to offer.

A promising singer, he has been selected for a prestigious school in Cambridge where for training as a chorister, his voice full of potential. What made it even harder for William, was that he was already bearing scars from his childhood before he went to Aberfan. For me it was about not letting the past consume you and carrying on living your life to the fullest. Even though William is only a young man when we meet him, the story goes back to when he was at school and what life was like for him growing up. As well as William’s gentle, caring nature, I also loved Martin’s cheeky character and the man he became.I’ve read reviews criticising the author for using a true life tragedy as the basis for a book, and I can imagine if you live in Wales it must still be awful to think about it, but the whole plot of the book is about William’s PTSD and perhaps a fictitious event of that magnitude wouldn’t be believable? 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. In 1966, a colliery spoil tip above the Welsh village of Aberfan collapsed; 116 children and 28 adults were killed when the village was buried under a wave of slurry.