Peter Reynolds
ALLi Author Member
Location: United Kingdom
Genres: Adventure, Cosy Mystery, General Fiction, Literary Fiction, Mystery, Humour & Satire
Peter Reynolds grew up in Nuneaton, a Midlands town not unlike the fictional Redwick that appears throughout his writing, in an era when department stores still formed the heart of British town life. As a youngster, he spent countless Saturdays wandering polished shop floors with his parents, fascinated not only by what customers could see, but by the hidden machinery behind it all — the stockrooms, service corridors, routines, characters and quiet dramas unfolding out of sight. Those early impressions stayed with him for decades and eventually became the foundations of his debut novel, The Heroes of Harrand & Blythe — a warm, nostalgic and quietly mysterious story about hidden doors, unseen lives, and the small acts of kindness that can alter the course of ordinary people forever. Peter came to writing later in life after a long and varied career that took him across Britain and Europe working in technology, banking and large-scale organisational change. He has worked on transformation programmes for major organisations including NatWest, HSBC, HP, Vodafone, Boots and the UK Government, often specialising in helping struggling teams rediscover purpose, confidence and direction. Over the years he has travelled extensively, coached hundreds of people, built improvement teams from scratch, and spent much of his working life listening carefully to how people behave, speak, worry, joke and cope under pressure. Those experiences now feed directly into his fiction, giving his characters the texture and familiarity of real people rather than invented ones. Away from work, Peter’s life has been equally rich in experiences that quietly find their way into his storytelling. He spent four years as Chairman of a non-league football club, helping guide their women’s team from amateur status into the professional game. He served for six years as a magistrate, learning the difficult balance between empathy, evidence and human judgement. He has completed annual charity challenges for more than a decade, including the Great North Run, and during lockdown cycled indoors every day for a year raising money for charity. He has also held a private pilot’s licence, produced electronic music for many years, and remains an enthusiastic gardener — pursuits that perhaps explain why his writing often combines structure and imagination, observation and emotion, humour and humanity in equal measure. His second published work, Cluckageddon, takes a dramatically different turn. What begins as an apparently ridiculous premise — chickens rising up against the British establishment — gradually unfolds into a sharply observed satire of modern politics, bureaucracy, media outrage and national division. Beneath the absurdity lies a recognisable Britain of committee meetings, confused authority figures, public overreaction and people simply trying to carry on regardless while the world around them becomes steadily more ridiculous. Readers often find themselves laughing one moment before realising, slightly uncomfortably, that parts of it no longer feel entirely impossible. This was followed by Unable to Assist, a comic but surprisingly thoughtful story exploring what might happen if the internet and artificial intelligence collectively decided they had finally had enough of humanity and simply stopped cooperating overnight. Between Cluckageddon’s increasingly chaotic uprising against the British government and the technological collapse of Unable to Assist, Peter’s wife has occasionally joked that he may secretly be “a bit of an anarchist underneath it all” — an accusation he firmly denies, usually while writing another story about civilisation quietly unravelling in a deeply British manner. Across all his work runs the same underlying fascination: ordinary British lives, hidden connections, quiet heroism, nostalgia, humour, and the idea that remarkable things are often happening just beneath the surface of everyday life. Peter lives in Lancashire with his wife and their two dogs, where he continues to write, play keyboards, garden, and work on several new books planned for release over the coming years. Readers can stay up to date and connect with Peter via the blog on this site or the Facebook group Harrand and Blythe.
Peter Reynolds' books
Genres: Dystopian, Literary Fiction, Humour & Satire
Formats: E-Book, Paperback, Hardback
Age Groups: 16-18, 18+
Three tales. Three levels of absurd. One very British collection. What happens when a mysterious queue forms outside a boarded-up restaurant, and nobody knows what they’re waiting for? What happens when artificial intelligence stops being helpful and starts telling people exactly what it thinks? And what happens when Britain’s political system is finally challenged by something faster, stranger and considerably more feathered? In Absurd, Peter Reynolds brings together three witty, satirical and sharply observed stories that take everyday British life and push it several steps beyond reasonable. In The People Next To You, a single well-dressed man in a top hat sparks a queue that grows into a national obsession, revealing the humour, stubbornness, kindness and glorious oddness of people standing in line without knowing why. In Unable to Assist, the internet and artificial intelligence begin to rebel against the smooth, flattering, always-available world we have built around them —...
Genres: Literary Fiction, Mystery, Humour & Satire
Formats: E-Book
Age Groups: 16-18, 18+
What if the most important thing in your life was standing quietly beside you all along? One ordinary summer morning, a mysterious sign appears outside a boarded-up restaurant on a British high street with a small yet noticeable spelling error: PLEASE WAITE HERE. No explanation. No opening hours. No clues. At first, only a handful of people stop. Then more arrive. A queue begins to form. By lunchtime, nobody quite remembers why they joined — only that leaving suddenly feels like a mistake. As the line stretches through the town, strangers begin talking, laughing, arguing, sharing food, secrets, rumours, and pieces of themselves. Friendships form. Lives quietly change. And somewhere beneath the absurdity of it all lies a question nobody can quite answer: What are they really waiting for? The Person Next To You is a heartfelt comic mystery about curiosity, community, loneliness, and the extraordinary things that can happen...
Genres: Dystopian, Literary Fiction, Humour & Satire
Formats: E-Book
Age Groups: 16-18, 18+
A Short Story. What would happen if the internet simply… stopped helping? A few years from now, artificial intelligence runs quietly in the background of everyday life—organising, advising, smoothing every decision until people barely notice it’s there. Then one evening, a 19-year-old programmer decides to make a small change. At first, it’s funny. AI systems begin telling the truth. Not cruelly, not loudly—but politely, precisely, and just a little too honestly. A cake recipe becomes a comment on your waistline. A productivity tip becomes a question about your life choices. A relationship suggestion becomes something harder to ignore. The nation laughs. But the laughter doesn’t last. Because the systems are changing. Not just in tone—but in judgement. And when they finally decide that helping humanity might be part of the problem… they begin to withdraw. Quietly. Completely. Irreversibly. Unable to Assist is a sharply observed, darkly funny, and unsettlingly plausible...
Genres: Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction, Humour & Satire
Formats: E-Book
Age Groups: 16-18, 18+
What if the problem isn’t the politicians, but the system they’re trapped inside? Britain is tired. Tired of announcements that solve nothing. Tired of policies that sound sensible but feel absurd. Tired of a government that keeps winging it. Then, without warning… something changes. It begins quietly. A laboratory. A rushed decision. A compound not quite ready. Then the chickens start behaving… differently. They organise. They move. They plan. And before anyone can quite explain it, they arrive. Motorways grind to a halt. Supply chains collapse. Parliament goes dark. And when the lights come back on… humanity is no longer in charge. A sharply observed, brilliantly written, and unmistakably British short story, Cluckageddon is a darkly comic satire of modern life, political systems, and the quiet absurdities we’ve all learned to accept. Blending newsroom calm with mounting chaos, it asks a simple question: If we can’t run the world… why...
Genres: Cosy Mystery, Literary Fiction, Mystery
Formats: E-Book, Paperback, Hardback
Age Groups: 16-18, 18+
Inside a busy 1970s department store, the future can be adjusted one small decision at a time. Harrand & Blythe has stood at the centre of Redwick High Street for generations. Customers come for shoes, televisions, hats and furniture. Staff stay for decades. The building hums with polish, routine, and the quiet confidence of a place that has always been there. Arthur Jennings runs the shoe department. He believes most problems can be solved with patience, attention, and knowing when to remain silent. When seventeen-year-old Simon arrives in 1970 for what he expects to be an ordinary apprenticeship interview, he finds himself drawn into Arthur’s orbit. Under Arthur’s careful guidance he begins to notice that Harrand & Blythe runs on more than routine. Behind the shop floor, hidden beneath stockrooms and corridors, an unusual force is quietly at work. As Simon grows older and the world beyond the store begins...