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Reading lists

The best books about friendships

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Must-read books by women, as chosen by our readers

Us Three

***THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*** 
 
Get ready to fall in love with the funny, feel-good novel and instant Sunday Times bestseller from the author of Richard and Judy Book Club pick Love Untold and co-creator of Gavin & Stacey. 
 
'A touching celebration of the beauty and endurance of female friendship.’ DAWN FRENCH 
 
‘Heart-warming, entertaining and, at times, deeply moving story’ The Observer 
 
'Best book of the year so far. To sum it up I'd say "it was bloody lush' 5-star reader review 
 
****** 
 
Friends forever is a difficult promise to keep... 
 
Meet Lana, Judith and Catrin. Best friends since primary school when they swore an oath on a Curly Wurly wrapper that they would always be there for each other, come what may. 
 
After the trip of a lifetime, the three girls are closer than ever. But an unexpected turn of events shakes the foundation of their friendship to its core, leaving their future in doubt - there's simply too much to forgive, let alone forget. An innocent childhood promise they once made now seems impossible to keep . . . 
 
Packed with all the heart and empathy that made Ruth's name as a screenwriter and now author, Us Three is a funny, moving and uplifting novel about life's complications, the power of friendship and how it defines us all. 
 
Prepare to meet characters you'll feel you've known all your life - prepare to meet Us Three. 
 
Praise for Us Three: 
 
'A warm, smart, uplifting tale of true friendship.' BETH O'LEARY, bestselling author of The Flatshare 
 
'This novel oozes warmth and honesty. A big-hearted book that provides a cast of characters you'll lose your heart to.' ADELE PARKS, bestselling author of Just Between Us 
 
'I loved this brilliantly gripping depiction of the complexities of female friendship over the years. Love, betrayal, comedy and loss - Us Three has it all.' FIONA NEILL, bestselling author of The Haven 
 
Readers love Us Three: 
 
'I love the way Ruth Jones writes. The relationship between the 3 friends is perfect and a wonderful book to read about friendship' 
 
'I absolutely loved this so much. There were moments that made me cry and other moments that made me laugh.' 
 
‘The most enjoyable book I’ve read in ages. I laughed and cried, and at one point sobbed, my way through the book’ 
 
 
*** RUTH'S NEW NOVEL BY YOUR SIDE IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER***

Ruth Jones MBE is well known for her television work, most notably BBC One’s multi-award-winning Gavin and Stacey, co-written with James Corden, in which she played Nessa Jenkins. The 2019 and 2024 Christmas specials of this well-loved show garnered viewing figures of 18 million and 21 million respectively. Ruth also created and co-wrote several series of Stella for Sky TV, for which she was BAFTA nominated. Other TV work includes Hattie, Nighty Night and Saxondale. In 2024 Ruth played Mother Superior in Sister Act the Musical at London’s Dominion Theatre. Her latest acting role is Elena Ravenscroft in Harlan Coben’s Run Away for Netflix. 
 
Ruth’s novels have sold over a million copies. Never Greener was a Sunday Times bestseller for fifteen weeks, three weeks at number one, as well as WHSmith Fiction Book of the Year 2018, a nominated Debut of the Year at the British Book Awards, and a Zoe Ball Book Club pick. Her second novel, Us Three, and her third novel, Love Untold, were also instant Sunday Times bestsellers. Love Untold was a Waterstones Paperback of the Year, as well as a Richard &amp; Judy Book Club pick.

Friends forever is a difficult promise to keep... 
 
Meet Lana, Judith and Catrin. Best friends since primary school when they swore an oath on a Curly Wurly wrapper that they would always be there for each other, come what may. 
 
After the trip of a lifetime, the three girls are closer than ever. But an unexpected turn of events shakes the foundation of their friendship to its core, leaving their future in doubt - there's simply too much to forgive, let alone forget. An innocent childhood promise they once made now seems impossible to keep . . . 
 
Packed with all the heart and empathy that made Ruth's name as a screenwriter and now author, Us Three is a funny, moving and uplifting novel about life's complications, the power of friendship and how it defines us all. 
 
Prepare to meet characters you'll feel you've known all your life - prepare to meet Us Three.

Love Untold

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
THE RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK 
WATERSTONES PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR 
 
'Love, mess, secrets; this story of four generations of women is shot through with Ruth Jones's warmth and wisdom.' JOJO MOYES 
 
'A hug in a book' Prima 
 
'Her best book yet' Woman & Home 
 
'Compassionate, wise and life-affirming' The Observer 
 
The funny, moving and uplifting new novel from Ruth Jones, co-creator of Gavin & Stacey and author of the Sunday Times bestsellers Never Greener and Us Three. 
 Grace is about to turn ninety and she doesn't want parties or presents or fuss. She just wants a quiet celebration: her daily swim in the sea and a cup of tea with granddaughter Elin and great-granddaughter Beca. More than anything, she wants to heal the family rift that's been breaking her heart for decades. 
And to do that she must find her daughter, Alys - the only person who can help to put things right. 
But thirty years is a long time. 
And many words have been left unsaid. 
So is it too late now to heal the pain of the past? 
This is a story about mothers and daughters: the love inherent in that bond and the heartache that miscommunication can bring. More than anything, it's about the importance of being true to oneself. Meet Grace, Alys, Elin and Beca - a family you'll come to know, and to love. 
PRAISE FOR RUTH JONES 
 
'Heartfelt, joyful, brave, utterly compelling' RACHEL JOYCE 
 
'I adored it' JOANNA CANNON 
 
'Joyful, life-affirming' ADELE PARKS 
 
'Beautifully warm and totally absorbing. I cried and I laughed. I adored it' JANE FALLON 
 
 
READERS ARE OBSESSED WITH LOVE UNTOLD 
 
'Good grief. This is truly a novel that pulled on every last emotion.' 5-STAR READER REVIEW 
 
'Warm-hearted, beautiful and heartbreaking.' 5-STAR READER REVIEW 
 
'Ruth's best book yet... entertaining and incredibly moving.' 5-STAR READER REVIEW 
 
'A gorgeous, emotional read that I was completely immersed in.' 5-STAR READER REVIEW 
 
'I'm absolutely gutted it's over. . . loved every single page.' 5-STAR READER REVIEW 
 
 
Love Untold, instant Sunday Times bestseller, July 2023 
Richard & Judy Book Club Pick, Summer 2023 
Waterstones Paperback of the Year 2023

Love, mess, secrets; this story of four generations of women is shot through with Ruth Jones's warmth and wisdom. A big warm blanket of a book. I loved it

Rich in warm, engaging characters and a judicious mix of humour and pathos... it's a compassionate, wise and life-affirming book

Full of such warmth and kindness, and the writing is utterly beautiful. I adored it

A 'hug in a book', with characters that felt so real it was like I knew them

Heartfelt, joyful, brave, utterly compelling, it is a giant tribute to the love between women. You leave this book feeling you have made new friends

From the opening page, Love Untold is a beautifully warm and totally absorbing read. I cried and I laughed and now there's a hole in my life where Grace and her dysfunctional family used to be. I adored it

Wonderfully heartfelt... Jones tenderly portrays broken family and its complexities building to an ending as heartbreaking as it's uplifting

A beautifully written and deeply moving story about four generations of women from the same Welsh family and the secrets and bonds they share. I laughed out loud at times and enjoyed a good cry at others. A tale of friendship, forgiveness and second chances, LOVE UNTOLD is Ruth Jones at her very best

A beautiful, warm and moving story. I feel bereft now it's over. Ruth Jones just gets better and better

A wise and warm-hearted story about people finding their way back to each other

A sweeping tale of family secrets rippling across generations, this is an astutely observed novel that will appeal to Maeve Binchy readers, as well as Ruth's own legion of fans

A beautifully crafted novel about family secrets and the healing of longheld rifts told brilliantly from the perspective of four different women.

Grace is about to turn ninety. She doesn't want parties or presents or fuss. She just wants to heal the family rift that's been breaking her heart for decades. 
 
But to do that she must find her daughter Alys - the only person who can help to put things right. 
 
And when she finds her - if she does - she risks betraying granddaughter Elin. Who is far less forgiving of the past, with its hurts and secrets and lies. Meanwhile Grace's great-grand-daughter Beca is oblivious to all these worries, too busy navigating the highs and lows of teenage life and keeping secrets of her own. 
 
All families have their problems. And most of them get resolved. But Grace's problem is thirty years old. And she doesn't have time on her side. 
 
So is it too late for her to make peace? Or is reconciliation still within reach? 
 
Love Untold is about mothers and daughters and the complex bond between them. It's about the heartache that comes from leaving things unsaid and the power of true forgiveness. It is a joy-filled, life-affirming, sob-inducing novel - with characters you'll come to know and love - from no.1 bestselling author Ruth Jones

Never Greener

THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER, PICKED FOR THE ZOE BALL TV BOOK CLUB 
 
'Ruth Jones is excellent on human nature and why we make the mistakes we do. I felt for every character. Unputdownable.' Jojo Moyes 
 
The past has a habit of tracking us down. And tripping us up. 
 
When Kate was twenty-two, she had an intense and passionate affair with a married man, Callum, which ended in heartbreak. Kate thought she'd never get over it. 
 
Seventeen years later, life has moved on - Kate, now a successful actress, is living in London, married to Matt and mother to little Tallulah. Meanwhile Callum and his wife Belinda are happy together, living in Edinburgh and watching their kids grow up. The past, it would seem, is well and truly behind them all. 
 
But then Kate meets Callum again. 
 
And they are faced with a choice: to walk away from each other . . . or to risk finding out what might have been. 
 
Second chances are a rare gift in life. But that doesn't mean they should always be taken . . . 
 
- 
 
In her unmissable debut, actress and screenwriter Ruth Jones shows us the dangers of trying to recapture that which was once lost and failing to realise the beauty of what we already have. 
 
Praise for Ruth Jones: 
 
'I love books about gnarly, messy relationships and this one kept me gripped from the beginning. A great read.' Jane Fallon 
 
'Heart-rending, provocative and astutely written, Never Greener is a love story about getting what you want and losing everything you need. Ruth's characters will stay with me for a long time.' Cathy Bramley 
 
'Easy to read and full of laughter - and truth.' Daily Mail 
 
Readers have fallen in love with Never Greener: 
 
***** 'Loved this book from start to finish.' 
***** 'I fell in love with all the characters and could not put it down.' 
***** 'Brilliantly written, laugh-out-loud hilarious yet tear-jerking.' 
 
****RUTH'S BRILLIANT NEW NOVEL LOVE UNTOLD IS AVAILABLE NOW****

A Story of Love and Friendship

When Gavin Met Stacey and Everything in Between

'Gavin & Stacey’ is a TV series like no other. Now, for the first time, its creators James Corden and Ruth Jones tell the full extraordinary story of how they turned their little show into a full-on cultural phenomenon. 
 
As they recount the rejection, obstacles and challenges they faced on the way to giving birth to their beloved comedy creation, James and Ruth also explore the flourishing of their own real-life friendship. While their now legendary on-screen characters Nessa and Smithy had a profound awkwardness to negotiate, culminating in that marriage proposal in the 2019 Christmas special, Ruth and James forged a magical relationship of mutual support based also on a deep, shared sense of subversive fun. 
 
Here, from their tentative initial pitch to the emotionally overwhelming final day of filming, the duo detail what’s occurred every step of the way, bouncing off each other in inimitable style. Full of revelations and never-before-heard stories, this is a one-of-a-kind book about a show that’s already gone down in history.

James Corden (Author) James Corden is an Emmy Award winning host, writer, producer, and actor. Born in Hillingdon in 1978, he grew up in Buckinghamshire where he attended the Jackie Palmer Stage School. Early TV work included Teachers and Fat Friends, where he met Ruth Jones before going on to co-create the BAFTA Award winning Gavin and Stacey together where Corden’s breakout role came with his portrayal of 'Smithy’. Other notable TV credits include The Wrong Mans, which he co-wrote and starred in, Doctor Who and Jezz Butterworth’s miniseries Mammals. 
 On stage, Corden starred in One Man, Two Guvnors - for which he won the 2012 Tony Award for "Best Leading Actor in a Play" -, The History Boys and more recently The Constituent. 
 In 2015, Corden made a monumental leap when he took over as the host of the iconic The Late Late Show in the United States. In his time as host, Corden won multiple Emmy Awards and launched globally loved segments such as Carpool Karaoke. 
 In film, Corden starred in The Prom and received a 2021 Golden Globe nomination for “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture". His other feature credits include: Into The Woods and Oceans 8. 
 Corden also hosts the US interview series, This Life Of Mine With James Corden, on Sirius XM. 
 Corden was awarded with an OBE (Order of the British Empire) for services to drama at Buckingham Palace in 2015 Ruth Jones (Author) Ruth Jones MBE is well known for her television work, most notably BBC One’s multi-award-winning Gavin and Stacey, co-written with James Corden, in which she played Nessa Jenkins. The 2019 and 2024 Christmas specials of this well-loved show garnered viewing figures of 18 million and 21 million respectively. Ruth also created and co-wrote several series of Stella for Sky TV, for which she was BAFTA nominated. Other TV work includes Hattie, Nighty Night and Saxondale. In 2024 Ruth played Mother Superior in Sister Act the Musical at London’s Dominion Theatre. Her latest acting role is Elena Ravenscroft in Harlan Coben’s Run Away for Netflix. 
 
Ruth’s novels have sold over a million copies. Never Greener was a Sunday Times bestseller for fifteen weeks, three weeks at number one, as well as WHSmith Fiction Book of the Year 2018, a nominated Debut of the Year at the British Book Awards, and a Zoe Ball Book Club pick. Her second novel, Us Three, and her third novel, Love Untold, were also instant Sunday Times bestsellers. Love Untold was a Waterstones Paperback of the Year, as well as a Richard &amp; Judy Book Club pick.

Gavin & Stacey’ is a TV series like no other. Now, for the first time, its creators James Corden and Ruth Jones tell the full extraordinary story of how they turned their little show into a full-on cultural phenomenon. 
As they recount the rejection, obstacles and challenges they faced on the way to giving birth to their beloved comedy creation, James and Ruth also explore the flourishing of their own real-life friendship. While their now legendary on-screen characters Nessa and Smithy had a profound awkwardness to negotiate, culminating in that marriage proposal in the 2019 Christmas special, Ruth and James forged a magical relationship of mutual support based also on a deep, shared sense of subversive fun. 
Here, from their tentative initial pitch to the emotionally overwhelming final day of filming, the duo detail what’s occurred every step of the way, bouncing off each other in inimitable style. Full of revelations and never-before-heard stories, this is a one-of-a-kind book about a show that’s already gone down in history.

Ruth Jones

DON’T MISS THE NEW NOVEL FROM THE BAFTA-WINNING CO-WRITER OF GAVIN & STACEY. 
 
'Ruth Jones writes with such warmth you can't help but fall in love with the characters she creates.’ JAMES CORDEN 
 
The joyful and life-affirming new novel from the co-creator of Gavin and Stacey and the Richard and Judy Book Club author of Love Untold. 
 
Linda and Levi will never meet. But they’re going to change each other’s lives. 
 
In her role at the council’s Unclaimed Heirs Unit, Linda Standish investigates the lives of those who’ve died alone and tracks down any living relatives. She’s been a friend to the friendless for the past thirty-three years. And now she’s looking forward to an early retirement. 
 
But before she hangs up her lanyard, Linda takes on one last case – that of Levi Norman – a Welshman who made his home on a remote Scottish island for the past five years. 
 
What brought Levi here? And who did he leave behind? Obliged to travel (by hearse) with her arch nemesis Fergus Murray, and helped (and hindered) by local residents, Linda searches for clues to a life now lost. And in the process unexpectedly makes new friends, and discovers things about herself she never knew. 
 
Bursting with all the heart and humour that has made Ruth’s name as a screenwriter and author, By Your Side is about finding joy in the most unlikely connections, and the importance of holding onto friendship, love and community – especially when life gets messy. 
 
AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW. 
 
Praise for Ruth Jones: 
 
‘Ruth Jones is excellent on human nature and why we make the mistakes we do’ JOJO MOYES 
 
‘A cast of characters you'll lose your heart to.' ADELE PARKS 
 
'Beautifully warm and totally absorbing.’ JANE FALLON

Ruth Jones

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Must-read books by women, as chosen by our readers

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