Campaign Ruby

by Jessica Rudd

The Text Publishing Company. Australian, Political, Romance. Paperback rrp $32.95

Reviewed by Barbara Brown

Ruby Stanhope is a British investment banker who gets sacked by email. She replies with an angry email that goes viral throughout the internet and the world of banking. Ruby finds that her life as an investment banker anywhere in the world may now be cut short thanks to her erroneous yet brilliant reply email.

Ruby goes home to drink a very nice bottle or three of Australian peanut noise and in her drunken state finds she has booked a ticket to Australia on a tourist visa in the search of the peanut noise and some quiet time.

Next thing Ruby finds herself in Australia with a job as a political adviser to the Leader of the Opposition (LOO), Max Masters. Everything Ruby does from the moment she clicked SEND, to the night of the Australian Federal Election and losing her boss’s Blackberry, is unbelievably funny. But everything happens for a reason. Whenever Ruby trips over her Louboutin-clad feet and lands smack into another problem, she picks herself up with as much decorum as one can, dusts herself off and gets on with the job in hand.

Max and his group of devoted employees find that Ruby can not only can get them out of some pretty hot problems but that she has a great Toolkit that has everything in it from shaver and shaving cream to double sided tape and shower in a can. She may just save the political career of Max Masters if she doesn’t stuff up her life in the meantime.

Ruby has a To-Do list that grows with each passing day and each day that list seems to make Ruby see what a wonderful life she has fallen into. Having trouble with the language, the fashion, the political stance and entrances/exits out of hotel rooms and bathrooms, Ruby spends an incredible month travelling around Australia, seeing the people but never seeing the places. Life on the campaign trail isn’t easy.

Campaign Ruby is a funny but great read and brings the humorous side to life of a politician and his/her road to becoming/or losing Prime Minister of Australia without making it trivial.