Campaign Ruby by Jessica Rudd Text Publishing Company HK$312
This is how it starts. Ruby Stanhope, 28 and single, is suddenly fired from her job as an investment banker in London. She sends the HR department a ferocious e-mail, which goes viral and is published next day in The Sun. She takes delivery of a new pair of Louboutin boots, goes home, drinks far too much pinot noir, and wakes up the next morning with a hangover and a non-refundable airline ticket to Australia, neither of which she can remember acquiring. Before you can say 'Bridget Jones', she is off to a strange country where everyone calls her 'Roo'.
Even I can recognise the generic signs here. If you haven't got the point yet, consider the book's pink cover, with its illustration of an overflowing handbag containing a high-heeled shoe, a bottle of wine, and what appears to be an undergarment. We are in the world of professional singles, office romances and grudges, impulse shopping, indiscreet boozing and embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions. Welcome to chick lit.
We can predict that Ruby will cut a farcical swathe through the lucky country and fall for some undeserving smoothie, but end up in the arms of an Australian Mr Darcy.
Actually, this is an accurate description of what transpires in Campaign Ruby, but it doesn't do justice to this good-natured and skilfully written romp.
Ruby collapses into Australia like Alice stumbling down the rabbit-hole, but lands on her feet. Hardly has she arrived than she is pitched into the fast-paced and sometimes surreal world of an election campaign. Going to a party on her first night in Oz she is recruited, much to her surprise, as an adviser to the team of the leader of the opposition. Almost immediately comes the news that the prime minister has been toppled by an ambitious female colleague.