Gavin and Stacey star and co-creator Ruth Jones is best known for her starring role in the BBC series as the hilarious yet stoic Nessa.Yet, as well as her own on-screen, Ruth is also an accomplished author, having featured on the best-selling lists multiple times.
Her first novel, Never Greener, was released in 2018 and was published by Bantam Press. It was based on a screenplay she’d written in 2002 and told the story of a rekindled affair and the dangers of taking second chances. The book struck a shock bidding war between 10 different publishers after it went into the Sunday Times bestseller list at number seven after just three days of sale.
Its success saw Ruth also awarded the WHSmith Fiction Book of the Year 2018.
At the time, the actress told The Scotman: “I am nervous about how my debut novel will be received, because there’s always that feeling that somebody might say something negative.
“I say I won’t read the reviews, but I probably will. But just because somebody says something negative, I don’t have to believe it.”
Never Greener was the first of two novels sold in the deal which included the 2020 release of Us, Three, which saw Ruth then sign a two-book deal with Transworld.
Transworld senior commissioning editor Frankie Gray said that Ruth’s “storytelling genius is realised in this impressive fiction debut. It’s impossible not to fall for the diverse cast of characters, with all of their imperfections and everyday dilemmas, and to invest wholeheartedly in an idea as universal as it is affecting.”
Ruth went on to release her third novel, Love Untold, published by Penguin Books in 2022.
The actress will add to her list with her upcoming book, When Gavin Met Stacey and Everything in Between: A Story of Love and Friendship.
Ruth and her co-star and friend James Corden will write the book, which will be available later this year, together, they will tell the extraordinary story of how they turned their little show into a full-on cultural phenomenon.