This episode of the podcast was recorded a few weeks before Sophie's latest novel, The Frock Shop, was published and Rachael asked her some questions about it, including how she manages writing multiple points of view (there are give in this novel). Sophie also mentions some events and how at the time we recorded there weren’t booking links for everything - but there are now! 

However, The Frock Shop is not the focus of this episode - we’ve recorded a separate episode for that - because we have a guest, and she is Petronella McGovern.

Petronella’s first books were memoirs she ghostwrote for others and from there she moved into writing fiction, and she is now the author of several bestselling domestic thrillers, the latest of which is Every Time She Wakes. You can find more information about Petronella and her new book below.

At the core of the new novel is the concept of time, and whether or not it is linear. We both love talking about time, so this conversation was right up our alley!

Petronella will be the feature author in Rachael’s Book Club in September - you can join that group here.

Other news: Rachael is teaching a one-day workshop at the Romance Writers of Australia conference in mid August - tickets still available - and Sophie will be at the conference too, as her publisher self.

ABOUT PETRONELLA MCGOVERN

Petronella McGovern is fascinated by what makes us tick, the lies we tell, and the secrets we keep. She is the best-selling author of Six Minutes, The Good Teacher, The Liars and The Last Trace. Her books have been nominated in the Ned Kelly Awards, the Davitt Awards and the Australian Independent Bookseller Awards. The Liars was selected in the Top 100 Big W/Better Reading list for 2023. Her new novel is Every Time She Wakes, is a time-bending thriller about family and identity.

ABOUT EVERY TIME SHE WAKES

A taut, time-bending thriller about family, identity and defying fate.

When careers counsellor Suze and her family are evacuated from their home during a bushfire, the van crashes and she thinks it's the end. But Suze wakes up two weeks back in time. No-one else remembers what came before. Is it all in her mind? Suze must work out what's happening and why to save her family, and wake up in a world she recognises.

'Gripping, unsettling and impossible to put down.'

Sally Hepworth

'A clever, propulsive thriller that plays brilliantly with time and tension.'

Christian White

For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

For more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.com

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For the past four years Rachael has - with her book club co-host Anthea Hodgson - run a readers retreat. Sophie has attended twice as a ‘featured author’ and this year she was on staff, partly to teach a one-hour writing workshop on the Sunday morning. A few weeks before, in the Facebook group for the retreat, she asked if anyone had questions they’d like me to answer - and they certainly did! Plus more came up during the workshop itself. So she collected them, and we decided to answer some of them in this episode. 

There were far too many to be contained in the one episode, so we’ll likely do another episode (or two). In this episode we focus on the questions that were from writers who are just starting out, thinking about it, or a little way into writing something and not sure about it. We talk about writer’s block, writing courses, how to find ideas and how to pick one idea to pursue. And more! There’s usually always more, because we like to chat.

These questions take us back to the original mission of Dear Rach & Soph, which was to answer questions about writing - or life, whatever you like. If you have a question you’d like us to answer on the podcast, please leave it in a comment on one of our social platforms or send it in a DM. And thanks for watching/listening! We very much appreciate you spending time with us. 

For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

For more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.com

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We recorded this episode a week ahead of the 2026 RJ Book Club Readers Retreat, which was held in Geelong and was as jam-packed and fun as the previous years. Rachael runs the book club and the retreats (and the podcast Reading Between Deadlines) with Anthea Hodgson, who is also from Perth and also a wonderful writer.

Anthea has a new novel, The Palace of Lost Virtue, so of course we wanted to talk to her about it - not just because it is an engrossing, often surprising historical novel based on true events, but also because Anthea is always interesting to talk to AND she’s really funny. And what does one do with an interviewee like that? Let them run, because there’s nothing an interviewer should do other than gently steer the conversation.

So we hope you enjoy meeting Anthea, if you’re unfamiliar with her and her work. And you’ll also get an update on Rachael’s joint-writing project with Mercedes Mercier, and get to listen to Sophie whingeing about how much Rachael and Anthea put her to work at the retreat.

For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

For more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.com

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Belinda Alexandra is one of Australia’s favourite novelists, with very good reason - her books are wonderful! And there’s some biographical information about her below, as well as the blurb of her latest novel, The Italian Correspondent.

She is also, as you shall discover in this episode of Dear Rach & Soph, an incredibly interesting woman who has lots of passions and pursuits, and a wide-open view of life and the world. This energy is part of why her books have such appeal, and it’s also why we could have talked to her for hours. If you’re familiar with Belinda’s books, no doubt you’ll want to be after that.

In the introduction to this episode, Rachael asks Sophie when she first became interested in clothes, as the latter is writing about them in her next novel, The Frock Shop (publication date: 21 July 2026). Her answer may surprise you …

ABOUT BELINDA ALEXANDRA

Belinda Alexandra's bestselling historical fiction has been published around the world, including in the United States, Spain, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Hungary and Poland. She is the daughter of a Russian mother and an Australian father and has been fascinated by world culture and travel since her youth. She lives in Sydney. Her hobbies include dancing, piano and foreign languages. And she co-hosts The Book Queens podcast and community with Jane Tara.

THE ITALIAN CORRESPONDENT

Rome, 1951. Veronica Gold is in the city as the correspondent for Vogue magazine. As Italy tries to shake off its dark fascist past and promote itself as the most glamorous nation in Europe, Veronica is trying to forget the horrific memories of her time as a war reporter attached to the Eighth Army at the brutal height of the Second World War.

But just as she hopes to lose herself in la dolce vita, three men appear in her life: Lyle Cooper, her ex-husband and an American diplomat; Marcello Fabbri, an archaeologist and one-time partisan now working in the ruins of Pompeii; and the dashing Count Carlo Durazzo, husband of Veronica's estranged friend, the enigmatic heiress Emerald Evergreen.

Complicated feelings arise, but before Veronica can resolve them, one of these three men is murdered. Veronica is quickly drawn into a sphere of spies and a world on the edge of nuclear war, one where nothing and nobody is quite as they seem.

For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

For more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.com

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From Sophie:

At the time of recording this episode I had a cold and Rachael was in the middle of preparing her house to go on the market. When I pressed ‘record’ I forgot to pull my microphone close enough and my usual camera wasn’t connecting so it’s the substandard version, which the internet would likely say is far too low quality to be permissible on a podcast that has video options … but! We persisted. Why? We had a guest booked and we were not going to cancel on her. Indeed, we were determined to show up as best we can, and the act of showing up usually has its own momentum.

Our guest in this episode is Sarah Clutton, an author from the Southern Highlands of New South Wales who won many fans with her last novel, The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains - which is not her first novel, so do ignore me saying that in the episode, and if I’d been feeling better at the time I would have done my research properly. But sometimes, liewers, the most a person can expect out of a day is to get out of bed and be presentable, and so it was on this day.

Sarah is delightful, and I do hope you will read her new novel, The Bookshop of Buried Pasts, which features a quote by me on the back cover (an incentive, non?). Mainly read it, though, if you love engrossing stories about families and secrets - and books. 

For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

For more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.com

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Have you heard the term ‘regurgitated volume’ before? No? Good. That’s because Sophie made it up in this episode of Dear Rach & Soph, to describe large volumes of content being produced by generate A.I. In other words: books being written by A.I. But she's not going to call them that, and we discuss why.

A.I. is a topic that is everywhere all at once, and also being raised specifically in relation to books and publishing. Rachael suggested we talk about it, because we haven’t addressed it much before but, given its pervasiveness, we thought it pertinent to do so, and also made the decision to do so about two minutes before we started recording. Which means we did something a large language model can’t: leap into the creative river and see what emerges, and work with what emerges and keep flowing. 

Is the sky falling when it comes to books and what effect A.I. may have on them? You’ll have to watch or listen to the episode to find out what we think … It’s available wherever you find your podcasts. 

For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

For more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.com

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From Sophie:

On this podcast Rachael Johns and I let these conversations go where they will, and in this episode we start talking about how important it is for grown-ups to engage in play. That means in our writing as well, even if - perhaps especially if - we are constrained by expectations and deadlines. So that’s the light stuff.

The heavy - or heavier - stuff turns up when we answer a listener question about social media and why male writers don’t seem to be on it as much as female writers. Here’s an abridged version of the question:

‘Just wondering why (to me) male authors don’t seem to feel as compelled to spend a lot of time networking, social media-ing and touring as female authors … Why do women authors seem to feel they have to be ‘out there’ to be recognised for their work? Or is this above and beyond and makes more money for them? If so all good, but to feel it’s the only way to be known and recognised seems unfair.’

The short answer is that it is, indeed, unfair but Rachael and I have a much longer discussion about it. As someone who has worked in book publishing for most of my adult life, I’ve had occasion to make observations and form opinions about certain things that go on, and you’ll hear some of those in this episode. Rachael has over 20 books published and she too has experience and opinions. We hope that bringing you the combination of all of that makes for an interesting episode!

For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

For more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.com

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In this episode we talk about a subject that has been on our list for a while: the reflexive nature of saying ‘sorry’. Admittedly it’s something Sophie put on the list, as it’s something she's had an interest in - you’ll have to watch/listen to this episode for the back story - and which she talks about regularly in her life, because so many of us say ‘sorry’ so regularly that she believes it’s detrimental to our wellbeing. We also talk about not apologising for being ourselves … and how this influences our writing.

In addition there's chitchat about writing and rejection (rejection is a popular topic with our audience, we’ve discovered), and we end the episode discussing what we’re reading now.

For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

For more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.com

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Hello longtime Dear Rach & Soph liewers (that's listeners + viewers to the uninitiated)!

Thank you for your patience while Rachael Johns and I took a break to focus on writing our next books (two of them, in Rach's case) and other things. 

Over the hiatus we've both had feedback that you mostly like us talking to each other, so there will be more of that this season, interspersed with some guests. We're really open to suggestions for topics to cover, as well, so please feel free to leave a comment to that effect or contact us on social media. There are various ways to find us.

We hope you enjoy this episode. We had fun talking to each other, and we hope that translates.

And in this age of AI, where I'm probably meant to run this through a programme that will tell me what to change so it's more SEO friendly, you can probably tell from the absence of buzzwords that I'm not doing that. This is me writing to you, one human to another, just as the podcast is me and Rachael talking to each other, one human to another. At least, I was human the last time I checked. Maybe I'm a holograph? Time will tell.

Thanks for watching/listening! We appreciate your time and hope you enjoy spending some of it with us.

- Sophie

For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

For more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.com

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Due to manuscript deadlines and other commitments, it’s taken until now to bring you up to date with October and November new releases. But it’s just in time for summer reading! See how I managed to spin that! As a reminder: these are the books we know about. If you’re an author with a 2026 release, you can let us know here.

This is a Soph-only episode as Rach has two books to write at once. She needs a restful summer break too! Indeed, this is our last episode for the year. Thank you very much for listening/watching to us this year. We don’t have a pod without you! We plan to be back next year and may well be asking which subjects you’d like us to cover … 

The full list of books mentioned in this episode is available on our Substack.

For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

For more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.com

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