Jane Riley Books in Order

Jane Riley was born and raised in New Zealand, where an early love of language led her to the University of Auckland. She earned a BA in French and English literature, then headed to Europe to put her French into practice. Germany diverted the plan, and Australia became home.

Her working life has taken a few useful turns. Riley has worked in public relations, television publicity, publishing, writing, and editing. She also launched an online shop and wrote a design blog, interviewing artists, designers, makers, and inventors.

For more than three decades, she has freelanced as a writer, with architecture and design among her specialties. A novel-writing course at Faber Academy in Australia helped point her toward fiction, giving her a way to turn her experience with people, work, and everyday details into stories.

Then fiction moved to the center of the picture.

Her debut, The Likely Resolutions of Oliver Clock, arrived in 2020 and introduced a character whose carefully managed life is due for a shake-up. Oliver runs his family’s funeral home, keeps a notebook of resolutions he rarely completes, and has spent years quietly carrying feelings he has not acted on. The novel mixes loss, awkward hope, romance, and dry humor, with a man learning that a tidy plan is not always enough.

Riley’s stories tend to begin with people who feel stuck, then give them room to reconnect. Friendship, love, community, grief, and the odd ways people protect themselves all come up often. The tone stays warm, but the problems are real.

In Geraldine Verne’s Red Suitcase, an older woman is overwhelmed by the death of her husband and reluctant to step back into the world. A chance connection with Lottie, a younger Meals on Wheels volunteer carrying troubles of her own, becomes the heart of the book. It is a story about grief, but also about two people finding practical help, humor, and company when they need it most.

The Mudlarkers’ Club moves to the banks of London’s River Thames. After the end of her marriage, Gemma takes up mudlarking, searching the riverbed for traces of the past. She soon meets a group of fellow searchers, and their shared hobby becomes a way into new friendships and a less certain, more open future.

People matter more than perfect answers in Riley’s books.

Riley divides her time between Sydney and London with her husband, while her two daughters now call London home. She also volunteers as an English-language tutor with the Adult Migrant English Program. When she is not writing, her long-running interest in design, language, and the stories people carry with them continues to show up in the small details of her fiction.