Welcome back to Reading Between Deadlines, the podcast where we read with the same chaotic energy we usually reserve for missed deadlines, burnt toast and re-reading our own bios in horror. This week continues our new format—where a guest author brings a book they adore, and we read it for the first time (sometimes very reluctantly).

Our guest this episode? The always delightful and impressively multi-hyphenate Sophie Green bestselling author of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon and creator of The Sunshine Society Substack and Sunburnt Country Music Substack.

This month’s pick: American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld—a book inspired by Laura Bush, drenched in domestic detail, and long enough to qualify as weight training. Was it a hit? Or did someone yell “kill” during the Kiss-Kill-Marry rating?

In this episode, we cover:

👑 What even is a “plotless novel,” and does American Wife qualify?

🥪 Can we survive one more description of a sandwich? (Asking for Anthea.)

💔 Is Charlie Blackwell a swoon-worthy presidential husband or just a charming alcoholic in a good suit?

🛏️ The ethical can of worms: how does one fictionalise the very real, still-living First Lady?

📚 Archetypes, agency, and how women shape power without always being seen.

🤯 Why the ending sparked a podcast existential crisis.

And, of course, we rate it: Kiss, Kill, or Marry?

⏰ Timestamps

00:00 – Meet your hosts: Rachel Johns & Anthea Hodgson, chaos queens of literary chat02:00 – Special guest Sophie Green and the great bio rating debate05:00 – This week’s pick: American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld06:40 – The Kiss/Kill/Marry showdown: who said what (and who changed their mind!)10:00 – Sophie explains her fascination with first ladies, feminine archetypes, and political wives15:00 – Anthea confesses: “I would’ve DNF’d it if it weren’t for the podcast”20:00 – Rachel says: “It was a French kiss...but I’m not putting a ring on it”24:00 – Charlie and Alice: toxic, tragic, or just realistically complex?30:00 – The risk (and craft) of writing fiction about living people36:00 – When you’re moderately famous and still have to go to Woolies40:00 – Books about fame: Jackie, Rodham, and Monica Ali’s Untold Story

📚 Recommendations from Sophie Green

Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

Jackie by Dawn Tripp

Untold Story by Monica Ali

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Plain Jane and the Birthday Party by Ruth Park (a childhood favourite)

👉 Listen now, subscribe, and tell us—did you swoon for American Wife?

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