Dear Rach & Soph

Nina Kenwood was one of the featured authors at this year’s Rachael Johns Book Club Readers Retreat in Geelong, Victoria, a few months ago, so we met her there. At the time we had not organised to talk to Nina about her new novel, People Skills, which will be released by Text Publishing on 6 October. And we hadn’t yet read the book, but ahead of recording this episode we did (and have both read the novel before it, The Wedding Forecast). As fans of Nina's writing and her storytelling, of her sense of humour and her compassion for human foibles, we had much to discuss when she joined us on the pod for this episode. Nina has worked in bookselling and publishing, and she has also published two young adult novels . We talk about that, and why she entered the Text Prize (which she won), her writing process and why most stories can be enhanced by having a romantic plot. The blurb for People Skills appears below.Before Nina entered the chat we talked about social media and authors, and the videos Sophie was making at the time on this subject (which you can find on her Reels tab in Instagram and Facebook, as well as on her YouTube channel in the Shorts). Nina has recently increased her social media activity, but that wasn’t why it was the subject of our intro chat! That was, as they say in the classics, a coincidence.ABOUT PEOPLE SKILLSPeople Skills is a slow-burn, forced-proximity romance about a PA falling for her boss’s son.Thirty-year-old Charlotte is working hard to reinvent herself after her career as a book editor went up in flames. She’s moved to a coastal town and landed a new job as a personal assistant to well-known media personality Hillary Hobbs. Hillary is launching a writers festival, and Charlotte is determined to prove herself capable of meeting her boss’s every need.When Hillary’s son Xavier arrives in town, Charlotte has a new problem to solve. A one-time-bestselling author, Xavier hasn’t written a word for years and now he’s broken up with his girlfriend and has nowhere to live.Charlotte finds herself not only offering Xavier her spare room, but also promising Hillary she’ll get his life back on track.But the more time Charlotte and Xavier spend together, the more an undeniable attraction develops, complicating everything…For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A year ago, on the podcast, we talked to Chloe Berry, who was in the process of launching a digital marketing agency for authors and also planning to become a literary agent. Chloe is in her twenties and has worked in publishing as a marketer for romance and other genre fiction. Starting her own agency was, obviously, risky - starting any business is a risk. Since then Chloe has been working as a bookseller and has not only successfully launched the digital marketing agency but very successfully launched her literary agency. Her client Penny Sunday has recently released her first novel, the dark rom com Kill to Love, which has been charting on Amazon all over the world. Chloe has done several more deals in her less than a year of agenting life, including backlist audio deals. She is also launching her own imprint, Millie Lane.Sophie knows all of this because she's the publisher of KILL TO LOVE and she's in regular contact with Chloe. Rachael also saw Chloe recently, at the RWA Conference in Darwin. So we thought it was time to have Chloe return as a guest, partly to celebrate all she’s achieved and also to talk about romance publishing in Australia and what she has planned.You can find Chloe on Instagram at @tbaliterary + @theberryagency + @chloeraeberryMillie Lane Press is at @millielanepressFor more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Listeners-slash-viewers a.k.a. liewers, you’re going to have to watch or listen to find out why, quite early on in our latest episode, Rachael says, ‘This is not a poo podcast.’ We're not giving you any hints! What we will say is that we recorded this ahead of her going to the RWA conference in Darwin, at which she taught a day-long workshop, gave the opening keynote speech and was made a lifetime member of the RWA. In short, she was an RWA rock star!Our main business in this episode is to answer questions that were submitted for the workshop Sophie taught at Rachael’s readers retreat in Geelong a few weeks ago. We decided to answer them on the pod as they are questions that we are asked from time to time anyway, so we thought the answers be useful to record. They are questions about writing and publishing, as you’d expect. What are they? Listen or watch to find out …For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the time of recording this episode Rachael was preparing her day-long workshop for the RWA Conference, which is happening this weekend. Sophie was meant to attend but, due to personal circumstances, had to cancel, so we aren’t seeing each other in person as planned. Yet we are together on screen and in audio in this episode, which we recorded about three weeks ago.We meant for this episode to be the follow-up to the 9th episode of the season, which was answering questions from aspiring and emerging writers who attended a workshop Sophie ran at Rachael’s readers retreat in Geelong in June, and which I didn’t have time to answer fully there. Instead of getting to the questions, though, we started talking about Rachael’s workshop, which is about writing romance novels, and that led to us talking about a whole host of things, including the rural romance genre - which is what Rachael was writing when she was first published - and the difficulties of discoverability for Australian authors.We talked for so long that there wasn’t time to address the questions, but we have done that in a subsequent recording which we’ll release in a fortnight’s time.For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As has become customary, each time Rachael or Sophie releases a book, we devote an episode of the podcast to discussing it. This time it’s Sophie's turn, with The Frock Shop, which was published on 21 July 2026 (blurb below).We had quite the discussion about clothes and why Sophie chose to write a novel about them, as well as the characters and much more besides. Rachael is hard at work on two novels at the moment, one written solo (her usual mode) and the other with Mercedes Mercier (the new mode!), so in due course we’ll be chatting about those too. But for now, we hope you enjoy this chat about The Frock Shop.About THE FROCK SHOPOn Sydney's lower north shore, in the harbourside suburb of Mosman, there is a charity frock shop. For decades, it has clothed the women of this suburb, through good times and bad, for richer, for poorer.Local resident Daphne has always worked at the frock shop. And she knows better than most how clothes are used by women as talismans, as armour, as beauty. Clothes are essential parts of women's stories, and those stories are now part of Daphne's life.Daphne has her own stories, too. Some involve her old friend Adelaide, who still bears the devastating secret that caused her to flee Australia in her youth. Some involve a new friend, Christina, who has been forced to leave her glamorous Los Angeles life to rebuild in her childhood city. Then there is Margot, living a life that is far from what she had dreamed it would be, and Lucy, desperate for escape and the promise of tomorrow.Not only does the frock shop give them purpose, but the clothes will help them become the women they were destined to be, because it is never too late for a transformation.For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 MCGOVERNPetronella 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 WAKESA 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 WhiteFor more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 ALEXANDRABelinda 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 CORRESPONDENTRome, 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.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.