This approach helps William make his decisions in life – if this, then that – and seems to work well for him as his moral compass, until his self-discipline slips to self-indulgence and then self-loathing. Oh my goodness! Being chosen by The Reading Agency for Radio 2’s Book Club is such an honour. I’m incredibly proud not only that A Terrible Kindness will be discussed by this highly respected book club, but also that it will be sitting on library shelves across the country.

Browning Wroe affirms that music acts as a kind of golden spiritual thread throughout the narrative, speaking of both brokenness and healing. For William, there is a period when it is absent from his life; his creator says that it was “like cutting his heart out”. We find out later on what caused him to change his mind and make him the reflective 19-year-old we meet at the start of the book. “A terrible kindness they did for us” 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.” Aberfan is a story that Britain will, and should, find difficult to forget. A natural disaster, caused by official negligence, that took 116 children’s lives; photographs of the giant spoil-tip that swept through a Welsh primary school; schoolgirls praying on the ruins as men dug towards classmates entombed below.I think anyone above a certain ages in the UK will be familiar with Aberfan, as it was a disaster that was and still remains seared on the national conscience due to both the huge loss of life – including 116 young children and 28 adults – and the aftermath – in particular the refusal of the National Coal Board to accept their clear corporate culpability. I found the tension between the protagonist's actions and their moral implications to be captivating. There is much to love about this book, which draws you in and moves you along. But too often, just when Ms. Wroe needs to take her theme just a little bit further, she cops out. Homophobia is rampant in the 1960s and it is evident that this must be the main reason why Evelyn (William’s mother) dislikes Robert and Howard and is afraid of their influence on her son. Yet the reason given is that Evelyn can’t bear to see her dead husband’s identical twin be “happy in love” when she has been deprived. I don’t buy it. I think the reason is far darker. 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. 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’s place at the residential choir school of King’s was engineered by his widowed mother. She has a future mapped out for him, which is a very determined diversion from a prospective life in the funeral business, which was the experience of his late father and is still the trade of his father’s twin brother, Uncle Robert. Family history, promises made, complicated relationships, and feelings of disempowerment among those closest to William stretch his loyalties and a sense of his own destiny.

“A terrible kindness they did for us”

The book also made me want to find out more about Aberfan. My heart broke thinking of all those lives shattered. However this book isn’t just about that tragedy, huge parts of it focus on William’s earlier life as a chorister, which I found incredibly fascinating. The next book to be featured on the Radio 2 Book Club with Steve Wright will be A Terrible Kindness, the powerful and emotional debut novel by Jo Browning Wroe. The book is released on 20 January and Jo will be on the show with Steve on Tuesday 18 January.