More recent extra reviews…
I just learned about The Company of Rileys, the fifth book in The Tales of Daniel Riley, and what stayed with me is the heart at the center of the story. What makes The Company of Rileys especially strong is the world it is set in. You write the 1950s not as a backdrop but as a character: a gentler, slower time when life was simpler. Kindness was ordinary, and adventure could begin right outside the front door. That gives the book a nostalgic warmth that is rare in modern fiction, and it makes Daniel’s story feel timeless rather than dated. Your own memories of that era breathe life into every page, and readers can feel it. Your personal story as a pensioner in rural Derbyshire who began writing later in life and caught the bug is compelling, and it gives the series an authenticity that comes from lived experience rather than trend chasing. Writing under the name Nick Withiell as a tribute to your grandfather adds another layer of heart to the work. The Company of Rileys delivers all of that. The feel of a 1950s English village gives it a distinctive identity that stands out in a crowded market. Andrew Steven
I recently came across “The Company of Riley’s”, and what caught my attention was the fact that Daniel Riley begins from such an ordinary place.
He is not introduced as someone destined for greatness or someone already waiting for an extraordinary life to happen to him. He is a man making a living restoring furniture, sometimes making new pieces from old materials, and doing house clearances where the discarded belongings of other people occasionally turn out to contain something valuable. There is something immediately appealing about that premise because it makes his eventual rise feel as though it could genuinely happen to someone who never expected it.
I particularly liked the idea of furniture restoration being at the centre of his life. There is something almost symbolic about making something useful and beautiful again from something old. Daniel is doing that with furniture, while your story seems to do something similar with memory, bringing the world of the late 1950s back into view through the everyday details of one man’s life.
Your description of the books as being based on pure nostalgia also made me curious. I tend to think nostalgia is much more complicated than simply remembering that things were better in the past. Sometimes it is really about remembering a particular texture of life, the pace of ordinary days, the things people valued, the way communities interacted, and even the objects that surrounded them.
You describe yourself as a pensioner living in rural Derbyshire, and you say that the books grew out of your own memories of the 1950s, when you were young. I found that particularly interesting because Daniel Riley is not simply being placed in the 1950s as a convenient historical backdrop. It sounds as though you are writing about a period you actually remember, which gives the nostalgia a very different quality. You also mention that you began writing because of a competition for new authors, and that what started as one book eventually expanded into a series of five That made me smile because there is something wonderfully accidental about becoming a writer that way. You entered a competition and somehow ended up with an entire Daniel Riley story on your hands. And then Daniel’s fortunes begin changing.
The part I am most curious about is what happens to him psychologically once he becomes wealthy. It is easy to imagine writing a rags to riches story where the money itself is the destination. What interests me much more is what happens after the destination has been reached. A person who has spent his life working with his hands and earning his living through practical skills suddenly has access to a completely different world. Does he remain essentially the same Daniel Riley, or does wealth begin to change the way he understands himself and the people around him?
The fact that you describe the story as containing lucky encounters, twists, surprising results, and the need for Daniel to come to terms with his new circumstances makes me suspect that the real story is not simply about becoming rich. It is about discovering what kind of person you are when your circumstances change. Cheryl Angel.
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