Dear Rach & Soph

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 SHOP
On 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.com

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

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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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