FINDING GRACE: A witty, heart-warming and ultimately uplifting women's fiction novel about family and midlife reinvention.

by Fiorella Ruas, Jonathan Pett

"She went out to buy wine. She didn't mean to disappear."

Grace is fifty.

She's not a walker. She's not even a brisk stroller. She's the kind of woman who takes sips of Chardonnay whilst doing a thirty-day online yoga challenge stretched over an entire year.

On the night of a combined birthday and wedding-anniversary celebration, Grace leaves the house to buy more wine.

And keeps walking.

What follows is a journey across France and Spain on the Camino de Santiago, told through her eyes, the eyes of the family she left behind, and the strangers she meets along the way.

A sharp, funny and deeply human novel about marriage, depression, family mythology, lost dreams and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.

"The people in the photo were trapped in a different reality, one where things still felt possible."

For readers who loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Instructions for a Heatwave, Still Life and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.

279 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 26, 2026

About the author

Fiorella Ruas is a French-born playwright, screenwriter and novelist who met British writer Jonathan Pett on a night train between Paris and Venice, and they have been writing together ever since.

Their work explores identity, belonging, family, class, memory and the hidden tensions beneath ordinary lives. Combining dark humour, emotional complexity and a distinctly European sensibility, they write across theatre, film, television and fiction. Their debut novel, Finding Grace, follows a woman who leaves her own birthday party to buy more wine — and keeps walking — setting in motion a journey across France and Spain that forces an entire family to confront the stories they tell themselves about love, marriage and who they really are.

They are currently writing WOW (Women Only Weekend), an ensemble novel about friendship, reinvention and the complicated lives of contemporary women.

Their theatre work began at the Royal National Theatre Studio, where The Pariahs was selected for the New Writing Festival, leading to a commission for The Hanuman, later nominated for the George Devine Award by Jocelyn Herbert. Other plays include Moonwater, Chasing Dolphins and To The Passer By. Together they adapted Thomas Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes for Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Belgrade Theatre before the production transferred to the Edinburgh Festival, attracting critical acclaim and industry attention, including a special showcase hosted by Miramax in London.

For film and television, they have written and developed projects for companies including World Productions, BBC, Carnival Films, Scala Productions, Sombrero Productions and Téléma. They have also worked as script consultants for organisations including the Royal Shakespeare Company and Working Title Television.

Fiorella and Jonathan live and write on the Camino, creating stories about families, outsiders, dreamers, immigrants, artists and those searching for connection in an increasingly fragmented world.

Reviews

[Cat Menzies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant story, binge read it from start to finish in one sitting! The end brought me to tears, and I cared deeply about each and every beautifully written character.

[Kathleen Basi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grace, disillusioned with her life, her role in her family, and the box she feels shoved into, snaps at her birthday party, goes out for wine, and ends up in France, walking the Camino de Santiago on a whim. This is a story of a family rediscovering themselves--and each other. While Grace is the star of the show, her husband and both of her adult children also have things to learn and gifts to offer each other. Her husband: feeling like a failure professionally and unable to face his wife. Her daughter: chip on her shoulder and involved in a relationship she knows everyone disapproves of--but making assumptions about why. Her son: terrified of illness and germs in a post-Covid world, depending on his mother to navigate the world for him.

Each of them discovers on this journey depths they didn't know they had and clarity they didn't know they needed, and it illuminates life for the reader as well.

[Nat Beckett]

I loved this book. An excellent read and an excellent yarn. I was vividly transported into Grace’s world . The storytelling is so engaging, and the pace sweeps you through the novel from the UK, to France and then Spain. I really liked the character development and the novel's twists along the way.
The writing is beautifully observed, bringing both the characters and their world to life without ever slowing the story down. I was genuinely sorry to finish Finding Grace — I've already recommended it to friends and to anyone looking for a compelling, beautifully told story.

[Siobhan Hutchinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent summer read, that had me hooked from start to finish. The characters were well written and I found myself laughing along to their antics. Would highly recommend.