In general, the fact that the author is the former Prime Minister's daughter would have turned me right off picking up novels such as these, but I decided to give them a try after seeing Jessica Rudd's name dropped all over twitter, and being quite impressed by her appearance on QandA late in 2011. She seemed to speak my language, and I absolutely raced through both these books on a quiet camping weekend.
The general storyline follows Ruby Stanhope, an English investment banker who is made redundant and drunkenly books a non-refundable plane ticket to Australia. Instead of the relaxing holiday she had planned, she finds herself at a party being recruited as an advisor to no less than the Leader of the Opposition. Ruby is a bit hopeless, accident prone, and inclined to incidents of public humiliation - think Bridget Jones - but manages to bumble her way into the centre of a fierce political spill - echoes of Kevin and Julia - and an ensuing federal election campaign.
As someone who pays mild attention to the goings-on in Australian politics I found the choice of setting quite interesting, but this still remains firmly in the chick-lit department, with all romantic highs and lows you would expect to find there.

The only thing that didn't quite work for me was the fact that the heroine was a Brit. I guess it was a device to help to smudge over the slightly implausible series of events that leads her to the political game, but I think there is still room for plenty more funny, strong, clever AUSTRALIAN female characters, and I'd like to see more of those written about too.

Check at the library for Campaign Ruby and Ruby Blues.

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