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

Subscribe on Spotify

Subscribe on Apple

Subscribe 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.com

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

Subscribe on Spotify

Subscribe on Apple

Subscribe on YouTube

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Subscribe on Spotify

Subscribe on Apple

Subscribe on YouTube

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.