Books by Rachel Johnson

Rachel Johnson's dramatic plunge into the family business of politics - and how it all went spectacularly wrong.

Brandon and Rachel Johnson served as U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers from July 2006 to December 2008. Living in the rural village of Kgobagodimo in the Limpopo Province, they became passionately involved in their community through youth development, health education, and teacher training programs. This book includes the entirety of Brandon and Rachel's personal blog from their time of service in South Africa, including the months leading up to their departure and their readjustment afterward. The following is an excerpt from their March 17th entry in 2008: "Rachel and I had some really tough times at the beginning. We struggled through many frustrating weeks of school and miserable days in the village. But in the midst of it all, with a lot of hard work and motivation, we slowly found our passion. "We found the things that make us smile. We found the things that make us go to bed at night saying, 'today was a good day.' Not all Peace Corps Volunteers reach that point. We feel blessed we have."

'I just loved it. Lethally funny and so clever.' - Jilly CooperI ADORED it. It's the most fun I've had with a book in a long time, and I love how she writes - so many dazzling sentences and phrases.' - Marian Keyes Debt, double-basements, dastardly bankers...and DIVORCE?'Hell is other people' and journalist Mimi Fleming is fast realizing on her return to Notting Hill that there is no greater hell than the W11 neighbours with whom she shares an exclusive communal garden. Since she's been away, all her friends have become - impossibly - even richer, thinner, and YOUNGER. They're busy not just turning back the clock but also their homes into palatial iceberg houses - with basement swimming pools. But Mimi's troubles are just beginning. There's the compromising and risky mission she'd undertaking to re-launch her so-called journalism career (plus an embarrassing case of mistaken identity thanks to Google). Then there's her children who will only communicate via WhatsApp . And worst of all, Mimi's fallen for someone, and it's certainly not her husband Ralph. Ralph and Mimi have already been to Notting Hell and back. But is this the end or the beginning of something new?

Winter Games is a dazzling tale of secrets and betrayal: perfect reading for fans of The Bolter by Frances Osborne, and the writing of the Mitfords.Munich, 1936. She doesn't know it, but eighteen-year old Daphne Linden has a seat in the front row of history. Along with her best friend, Betsy Barton-Hill, and a whole bevy of other young English upper-class girls, Daphne is in Bavaria to improve her German, to go to the Opera, to be 'finished'. It may be the Third Reich, but another war is unthinkable, and the girls are having the time of their lives. Aren't they? London, 2006. Seventy years later and Daphne's granddaughter, Francie Fitzsimon has all the boxes ticked: large flat, successful husband, cushy job writing up holistic spas . . . The hardest decision she has to make is where to go for brunch - until, that is, events conspire to send her on a quest to discover what really happened to her grandmother in Germany, all those years ago.'A rip-roaring read' Evening Standard'There's never a dreary moment in this blast of a book . . . Johnson's descriptions are irresistibly exuberant . . . As addictively, fizzily invigorating as the Alpine air itself' Daily Mail'Johnson delivers a genuine sense of time and place . . . there isn't a dull sentence in this sure-footed novel' Jenny Colgan, Telegraph'An excellent romp. Full of 'tally-ho' Mitfordian charm . . . a witty, fast read' Red'Excellent on period detail, the blundering innocent abroad and young heartbreak' Sunday Times'The Jane Austen of W11' ScotsmanRachel Johnson is a journalist who has written two previous novels and two volumes of diaries. The Mummy Diaries, Notting Hell, Shire Hell and A Diary of The Lady are all available now from Penguin.

Rachel Johnson takes on the challenge of saving The Lady, Britain's oldest women's weekly, in her hilarious diary, A Diary of The Lady: My First Year and a Half as Editor.'The whole place seemed completely bonkers: dusty, tatty, disorganized and impossibly old-fashioned, set in an age of doilies and flag-waving patriotism and jam still for tea, some sunny day.'Appointed editor of The Lady - the oldest women's weekly in the world - Rachel Johnson faced the challenge of a lifetime. For a start, how do you become an editor when you've never, well, edited? How do you turn a venerable title, full of ads for walk-in baths, during the worst recession ever? And forget doubling the circulation in a year - what on earth do you wear to work when you've spent the last fifteen years at home in sweatpants?Will Rachel save The Lady - or sink it?'Action-packed, entertaining, marvellously indiscreet. Johnson is everything you want in a diarist and has a compulsive habit of saying the wrong thing' Sunday Times'She's a loose cannon. All she thinks of is sex. You can't get her away from a penis' Mrs Julia Budworth, co-owner, The Lady'A total romp, wonderfully readable, unflinchingly described' Guardian'HYSTERICAL. For the first time, everyone is talking about The Lady for reasons other than nannies' Piers MorganRachel Johnson is a journalist who has written two previous novels and two volumes of diaries. The Mummy Diaries, Notting Hell, Shire Hell and A Diary of The Lady are all available now from Penguin.

Mimi and Ralph have left social climbing, pushy parenting and their marital problems behind them in London, and moved west to the bucolic green depths of the country. Or so they thought. Yes, there's mud and masses of fresh air, plenty of handsome hayseeds and there's Rose, Mimi's new best friend and Dorset's answer to Martha Stewart. But what should be Shire Heaven is, it turns out, just as tricky to navigate as Notting Hell. There's low-level conflict between the racehorses in vintage/Diesel/Ralph Lauren and the brood mares in Barbour/Boden, there's guerrilla warfare between the landowners and eco-warriers and naked hostility between Old Money, New Money and No Money. Yes, in honeybourne, if you don't have:1) A landscaped garden within 1000 acres (minimum) of prime land2) A helipad for your trophy guests3) An organic farm shop selling 16 sorts of home-made sausages4) Four pony-mad polo-playing children5) A literary festival in your mini-stately6) A bottom that looks smackable in jodhpursThen, well...you're Mimi basically.And that's just the start of her problems. Mimi also has a secret. But can she keep it?

Rachel Johnson's hilarious take on life as a yummy mummy in West London and on Exmoor has been making her newspaper readers chortle for the last couple of years: now they are seamlessly turned into a diary of her year, from the dog's birthday party in January (games of Paws-the-Parcel) to the June sports days (where the mummies turn up at the school sports day in sports bras and running shorts with little back packs containing high energy drinks - and that's just for them) to summer on Exmoor hosting demanding visiting ponies.