It’s not a label bestowed lightly, but Ruth Jones is well on her way to earning it, thanks to her much-loved TV projects, Gavin & Stacey and Stella, which mixed drama and comedy to heartwarming effect. Her screen work has that elusive quality of the top-notch writer, a “voice” that wins you over instantly. So it’s disappointing to open her debut novel and find that voice subdued to the point of absence. Can this flavourless work really have come from the same writer who gave us the outrageously quirky Nessa? Jones may have a good novel in her, but even her spark can’t set this soggy material alight.

Source: The Guardian April 13, 2018 09:56 UTC