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As the long-term love of Britain's richest comedian, it would be all too easy for Jane Fallon to look fabulous on the red carpet from time to time and simply sit back and enjoy the trappings of his fame and fortune. But that's never been the style of the award-winning TV producer-turned-best-selling author. In fact Jane is busier than ever, having this week published her 14th novel, Welcome to the Neighbourhood.

The 65-year-old has always been a grafter, and built two hugely successful careers long before partner Ricky Gervais, 64, hit the big time with comedy series The Office in 2001. With his reported £130million fortune built from various Netflix deals, live tours, drinks adverts and a property portfolio, Jane need never type another word again. So why does she?

"Oh I couldn't give up writing, I don't know what I would do with myself," she tells me. "It's how I see myself and it is what I always wanted to do. Besides, I still haven't had a No1 bestseller yet - only on e-book, not a real book - so I still have that to aim for."

Her hugely popular 2006 novel, Getting Rid of Matthew, is finally being made into a movie - starring Heather Graham - with filming starting this spring.

Jane, who started dating Gervais more than 40 years ago, says: "My books do often get optioned for film or TV and then something happens and it all falls apart, so I have learned not to get my hopes up. But this time it is looking really promising and I am really excited about it, although I'm not allowed to talk too much about it."

Her books make ideal TV or film adaptations because, having honed her writing skills as a scriptwriter on EastEnders, Jane is the mistress of the cliffhanger.

"I was at EastEnders during the time of the Phil and Grant Mitchell and Sharon love triangle, and when Frank Butcher left Pat and when David Wicks discovered he was Bianca's dad," she says. "As scriptwriters it was always aboutcreating a dramatic cliffhanger for the end of the episode. I only wished I'd been at EastEnders for Den and Angie, but that was before my time. I don't watch it now though."

Her time on the BBC One soap was followed by a number of award-winning TV series, including This Life, 20 Things To Do Before You're 30 and Teachers. "In the end, though, I felt it was time to take the plunge and try writing books full-time - although I had already been writing rubbish ones in secret for a long while,"she says.

"I really admire people who manage to write while holding down another career, and I know was very lucky that I didn't have to financially. Besides, I had always been freelance in TV, so when I said I was leaving, I always thought I could go back if things didn't work out."

Jane believes that writing in a dramatic soap-style way about the ups and downs of relationships has heavily influenced her story-telling. "The biggest compliment for me is when a reader says they couldn't put it down and had to carry on reading the next chapter," she says.

However, partner Ricky doesn't even pick them up in the first place. Jane says he is "not much of a reader", but is thrilled by her success. "Of course he is incredibly proud of me," she adds. "We are totally proud of each other and happy for each other's successes. We are really lucky, but I think it is good that we don't do the same thing. I think that could be really difficult - like if you are both actors and one is more successful than the other."

The couple met when they were students at University College London. Within two years they were living together in a one-room flat above a brothel in Kings Cross. "We drive past it sometimes," she laughs. "It's still there."

Home is now a £15million mansion in Hampstead, north London. They moved into the nine-bedroom pad, which boasts a spa and gym, in 2024. It was moving house that gave Jane the inspiration for her new book, about friendship and jealousy.

"It got me thinking about moving to a new area and what if you did that completely on your own and didn't know asingle soul like my character Kitty does," she says. "Obviously the book is an extreme version of what could happen when you don't really know what people are like."

Unlike her protagonist, who is desperate to ingratiate herself with her super-cool neighbours - who turn out to be nothing like they seem - Jane isn't much of a mixer. "I would never join a social group or neighbourhood group or anything like that," she says with a shudder. "I have never been a particularly social person. I have always been very introverted. I am from a big family, which makes it harder to stand out."

She loves nothing better than being alone at home writing. "But I am friendly to the neighbours," she says with a laugh. "I do say hello to people!"

Born in Harrow, Jane grew up in Buckinghamshire, living in a flat above the newsagents run by her parents. She attended a convent school in Slough before studying history at university - writing for the department's magazine as well as the student newspaper. These days, the lifelong insomniac rises "knackered at 5am" to write when the house is quiet and there are no distractions from Ricky, emails or work calls.

But, she says, promoting her work on book tours isn't really her thing. "I am shy and although it is lovely to meet readers, if I have anything in the diary to promote a book a few months ahead, I worry and stress about it," she explains. "I am just not good with crowds. Perhaps if readers could just come to my house one at a time for five minutes..."

Little wonder then that Jane loves the Brontë sisters and their books, written when the siblings were ensconced in a house on the isolated Yorkshire Moors. "I love their female characters, these put-upon interesting women who are not just obsessed with getting married," she says.

Jane and Ricky have never felt the need to get married after 45 years together, and it is clear the idea bores them both.

"I am not interested in romance and I find it lazy when people call my books 'chick lit' because they are not really romances," says Jane. "Yes, I have more women then men as readers, although I do get men coming up to me sheepishly to say they read my books."

Someone once described her fiction as "chick noir", a label that Jane prefers and says make her happier, as it feels like her "natural place". She adds: "There is a dark undertone to them, and while no actual crimes like a murder are committed, social crimes are committed. There is a nastiness about some of my characters. People say my books are always about revenge, and that is true. I am interested in revenge. I feel my writing is going to get darker and edgier."

Jane is already working on her 15th novel and is delighted that her 2008 bookGot Your Back has inspired Joyride! The Musical, featuring the songs of Swedish pop duo Roxette. The show, which premiered at the Malmö Opera in Sweden in 2024, is currently in Stockholm and expected to come to the UK. It tells a revenge-fuelled story of infidelity, with music and choreography influenced by Marie Fredriksson, who died in 2019, aged 61, and her Roxette bandmate Per Gessle.

"It was so random and unexpected that Got Your Back was made into a musical but I just love musicals and it is brilliant," says Jane. "I really hope it comes here."

As time goes on, she says it becomes harder to think of new plots, stories and characters. Yet she believes her writing is still improving. "I recently read Got Your Back again and thought, why did I write it like that? So I do think I am getting better.
"When I first started writing I used to be so self-conscious. It's so easy to over-think it. Now when I write I think of it as having a conversation with a close friend, telling them a story. It somehow makes it easier."

Welcome to the Neighbourhood (Penguin Books, £9.99) is available in all good bookshops and online now