Ruth Jones - 'My new book is about whether a rift can be resolved'

Virgin Radio

2 Oct 2022, 17:17

What's occurring? A new novel, that's what's occurring.

Gavin & Stacey star Ruth Jones is back with her third novel, Love Untold – a warm-hearted story about four generations of women in the same family.

"I had a bit of impostor syndrome after the first one and slightly with the second," she said, popping into The Graham Norton Radio Show this morning. "And now I think I can officially say I'm an author..."

"It's a family drama," she says, explaining what the book is about, "and it's about four generations of women in the same family. The eldest is Grace, who's about to turn 90. Her daughter is Alice, who's in her 70s. Ellen, her daughter is in her 50s. And at the end of the chain is Becca, who's 16.

"30 years ago, Alice, who's the 70 something year old, had a big falling out and abandoned the family and they haven't seen her since. But now that Grace has this big birthday approaching, she wants to make peace and find Alice. But if she does that, it's going to cause terrible problems with her granddaughter, Ellen, who wants nothing to do with her mother."

She continues, "Poor Becca doesn't even know that her grandmother Alice exists. So it's all about mother daughter tension, family tension, and about whether a rift can be resolved. Let's hope it can."

Ruth recently told the press that, while she can see herself writing with James Corden again - co-creator of the massively popular Gavin & Stacey - that series is done for good.

But does she have any plans to adapt her fiction for the screen?

"[2018 debut novel] Never Greener was a screenplay that I wrote sort of 20 years ago," she reveals. "I turned it into a novel and I have recently, as a labour of love, started turning it back into screenplay. Whether it will see the light of day I don't know, but the those the first two novels, there wasn't really much interest. But there has been a lot to turn Love Untold into a screenplay so. So we'll see!"

She continues, "I always feel though, that when you read a novel, it's almost like one of the first things that people say about it. People are always like, 'Oh, who would play the main character on screen?' and I just think, 'Oh, can we not let the book live as a book...'"

Love Untold is available to buy now in all good bookshops. And maybe some bad ones too.

Listen to The Graham Norton Radio Show every Saturday AND Sunday from 9:30 am on Virgin Radio or catch up on-demand here.