Name: By Your Side
Author: Ruth Jones

By Your Side, Gavin & Stacey co-creator Ruth Jones’ latest novel, is an hilarious life-affirming mid-life drama exploring love and grief with a mystery twist. Read my review.

Publication: Penguin Random House, May 2025.

Genre: Drama, Humour, Romance, Mystery

By Your Side Publisher Synopsis

‘Ruth Jones writes with such warmth you can’t help but fall in love with the characters she creates.’ — James Corden

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.

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My Review

As a huge fan of Ruth Jones’ TV work (Gavin & Stacey, Stella) I’ve been keen to experience her much-loved fiction writing also. By Your Side is her fourth novel, but better late than never I say, in line with the carpe-diem feel of this later-in-life drama.

Fellow Stella fans will immediately connect with Jones’ leading lady, Linda Standish. She can be bolshy and opinionated, but mostly in an upbeat, glass half-full way, and she’s a bit of stirrer of those she feels need to live a little bit… which I loved.

The hearse pulls up outside the main doors and I’m there, ready to greet it, wrapped in my black faux-fur hat with matching faux-fur coat, effecting the look of a chubby Anna Karenina. It’s keeping out the chill, but more importantly it hides what I’m wearing beneath: a scarlet woolly dress with a laughing reindeer emblazoned on the chest. I won’t have time to go home and change, and it’s our office Secret Santa straight after this: festive frocks are obligatory.

But, her take-charge persona and self-deprecation are crucial lines of defence for her heart once broken. The mysterious lone-wolf Levi’s back story is emotionally rich and highly compelling also. Even this novel’s second- and third-tier characters are vividly drawn, relatable and endearing.

Jones really does have a special talent for crafting authentic characters who shine bright when they are pushed outside of their comfort zones. In By Your Side she displays her knack for highlighting the humour in these moments too. Multiple giggles burst out of me while reading.

Jones’ employment of alternating character narrative perspectives and switching timelines to explore the multi-faceted themes of love, parenthood, grief, healing and second chances, felt very organic, never forced or formulaic. This story, and the emotions it plumbs, are strong and always leading, rather than the construct.

Ruth Jones’ By Your Side is contemporary fiction that I think strikes the perfect balance between enjoyment and emotional journey. It is a highly accessible and entertaining novel that tackles themes with enough gravitas and nuance to provoke deeper thought and personal reflection. Highly recommended reading.