Julia Claiborne Johnson Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Julia Claiborne Johnson is a published author, known for writing the bestselling book Be Frank With Me.

Her novel Be Frank With Me ended up being a finalist for the Best Debut Novel Award from the American Bookseller’s Association. Julia grew up on a farm in Tennessee, then moving to live in New York City. There she worked at Glamour magazine and Mademoiselle magazine.

Today, Julia is married. Her husband is a comedy writer and they live together in Los Angeles along with their two children.

Be Frank With Me is a 2016 novel written by Julia Claiborne Johnson. When it comes to reading the classics, it does not get more classic for this author than one of her most beloved works.

M.M. “Mimi” Banning is a literary legend, albeit a reclusive one. She’s been living in her Bel Air mansion holed up there for years on end. Now she is doing her utmost to try and write the first book she has come out with in decades. But there’s always a deadline to be met for these types of things.

To make sure that they are all completed in a timely basis, her publisher ends up sending over an assistant to track her progress and monitor her to make sure that writing is getting done. Mimi agrees to go along with it, but she also puts a few rules of her own on it. There must be no English majors or people from Ivy Leagues, they have to drive and cook and tidy up. They also must be good with computers as well as kids, and above all else be quiet, discreet, and within their right mind.

Alice Whitley ends up being the selection that meets all of this criteria. When she goes to the Banning mansion and officially arrives, there is no time wasted at all before she is put to work. That is as a companion on a full time basis to Frank, who is the nine-year-old son of the writer (and is quite eccentric to boot). He is also fairly witty and has a great wardrobe the likes of which would make a movie star from the thirties envious. It appears that he also does not have much in common with the fourth graders alongside him at school.

As Alice spends more time trying to get to know Frank better, she also starts to become completely obsessed with doing her best to found out who his father is. She also wonders how his handsome piano teacher and male role model Xander is part of the equation when it comes to the Banning family, as well as whether Mimi is ever going to complete her book.

With plenty of heart and the types of moments that can happen only in a place such as Hollywood, this novel is the heart warming story of a mother and son who are more unusual than most, as well as the brave young woman who steps foot into their unique world and finds that she is pulled in. Will the book end up getting completed, and will Alice be happy that she came or count it among her greatest mistakes? Read this book to find out!

Better Luck Next Time is a 2020 novel that was written by Julia Claiborne Johnson. If you have read other works by this author, you are going to want to check out this novel and find out all about it, from the endings to the beginnings to the complexities of love and friendship, all set in Reno in the thirties.

The year is 1938. Women who are looking to get divorced from their husbands without any questions and in a speedy fashion all know that there is just one place to go. They have to go to Reno, Nevada, also known as the divorce capital of the world. But lest they think that this is so easy, the entire scheme comes along with a catch.

If women wish to get these expedited divorces, they are going to have to apply to become residents and have to wait six weeks in total in order to do so. A lot of these women who are about to be divorced are not only wealthy but end up going to the Flying Leap, a dude ranch that also happens to have the silver lining of catering to every need that they could have.

At 24 years old, Ward was able to spend a year only at Yale studying there before his family lost everything that they have as a result of the Great Depression. Now he is making an honest living for himself working as a ranch hand at the Flying Leap. It’s not too bad, and he gets a lot of positive attention and admiration for what others refer to as dashing good looks. Besides being Cary Grant in cowboy boots, Ward believes that he has the clients of this place completely figured out.

There are two new guests who have come around who are about to turn around everything that he thinks that he knows. This is Nina, a St. Louis heiress and an amateur pilot who has returned to get divorced a third time. It is also Emily, a woman who seized her courage in life to leave her adulterous husband in San Francisco and make her way to Reno to get divorced and start again.

An interesting take and a story that has to do with marriage, divorce, and all that comes along with and in between– class, money, ambition, and more. This story takes a look at the various ways that friendship is able to save us, the ways that love is able to destroy us, and how the family that we make is sometimes able to be even stronger and more sustaining than the family that we have come from.

It’s a book that will have you staying up later and turning the pages to find out what happens and all the details along the way, so check out Better Luck Next Time and see what you think!