Campaign Ruby

When she gets the email announcing her redundancy, Ruby Stanhope hopes to maintain the composure expected of your average London investment banker. Instead, the next day's hangover brings two unfortunate discoveries. First, her impromptu reply to the bosses has gone viral, published everywhere from Facebook to the Financial Times. Second, she has a non-refundable, same-day ticket to Melbourne thanks to a dangerous cocktail of Victorian pinot noir, broadband internet and a dash of melancholy. Landing in Australia, Ruby plans a quiet stay with her aunt in the Yarra Valley - but a party at the local winery results in an unexpected job offer- financial policy adviser to the Federal Leader of the Opposition. Intrigued, Ruby heads to Melbourne for morning coffee with the Chief of Staff - and finds herself in the middle of the Treasurer's overthrow of the Prime Minister and the announcement of an early election. Rookie Ruby, dubbed 'Roo' by her Aussie colleagues, is thrown into the campaign and spends four weeks circumnavigating Australia while trying to stay afloat in the deep end of politics. Through trial and plenty of error (including wardrobe malfunctions, media mishaps and a palate for unsavoury men) she finds passion, not just a flair, for her new career. With its light touch and deft comic instincts, Campaign Rubyis a delightful combination of fashion, faux pas, falling for the wrong man and the unexpected fun of federal politics.

Ruby Stanhope is back, bigger and better than ever! - with more cocktail spills, more romantic thrills, more political skewerings and LOLs. In Campaign Ruby, the very fabulous Ruby Stanhope got the Leader of the Opposition elected and fell in love with Luke. Two years into his first term, the new PM is on the nose. And Luke is demanding romantic dinners at home rather than takeaway on the run. What's a girl to do when she's about to turn thirty, when her wardrobe turns drab, her love life turns luke-warm and the government is leakier than a cheap umbrella? Can she find her inner Nancy Drew in time to save her boss? Will she succumb to temptation when Elliot, the hot vet, enters the scene? Luke? Elliot? Work? Love? Unladdered stockings? Can she have it all? And, more importantly, what should she wear to the Midwinter Ball? Jessica Rudd, 28, had three career changes in as many years - law, PR, politics - but is now going steady with her life as a writer. She hopes Ruby Blues, sequel to Campaign Ruby, will give her readers as many laughs as she had writing it. Jessica is based in Beijing. 'A light-hearted, skilfully written political romp...the Gen Y comedy of manners par excellence.' Age 'Ruby Blues is a delight to read. Beyond the laughs, it contains some serious messages for us (about our priorities) and for our leaders (about being themselves rather than just spouting predictable talking points). Will someone please buy the PM a copy?' Canberra Times 'Fresh funny and smart. Loved it.' Mia Freedman, West Australian magazine 'Ruby Blues should serve to establish Jessica as an author of thoroughly fun and thoroughly female books. Ruby Blues is like The West Wing meets Marian Keyes: fast-talking through the corridors of power blended with putting-make- up-on-in-a-bike-taxi drama and work-life-balance calamity.' Sunday Mail Brisbane 'Rudd is a natural storyteller, one whose narrative and character construction reveal an underlying intelligence. There is substance behind the easy writing style.' Weekend Australian 'Ruby Blues is Allison Pearson (I Don’t Know Show She Does It) with parliament...Rudd should really have written At Home with Julia - she would have done a better job.' Sunday Age 'Ruby Blues is one of the best novels I've read this year. Easy to read, hard to put down, it has everything Campaign Ruby had plus more, namely a hunky veterinarian...Rudd's writing is witty, modern and on-trend with her target audience. If you love politics, chick lit, fashion and twitter, then this book is for you.' Examiner 'For politically savvy Gen-Y chick lit, you can't go past [Jessica Rudd]...It's a savvy and entertaining read.' Saturday Age 'Laugh-out-loud moments abound: the scrapes, foibles and follies are hilarious: and the bitchiness is biting. Someone, please, grab the film rights.' Good Reading 'Hilarious, clever and sharp - this is one of my favourite books of 2011.' Sunday Star Times

This collection brings together leading scholars and practitioners with a variety of interests as related to women entrepreneurs. Taking a unique scholarly-practice approach, Crittenden builds an enticing story around several key variables that influence go-to-market strategies for women entrepreneurs.

This is book 19 (Legacy) and 20 (Emerald Eyes) of the New Rulebook and Pete Zendel Christian Suspense series.

A brave new novel that sensitively explores one woman's experience of sexual violence and the silencing of those who feel compelled to speak out.What happens when a young woman enters a city apartment early morning, with two footballers? Jordi Spence is sixteen years old and lives in outer Melbourne. By daybreak, her world has shifted. Max Carlisle, a troubled AFL star, can't stop what comes next. And Ruby, a single woman from the apartment block, is left with questions when she sees Jordi leave. In this remarkable novel, Rachel Matthews captures the characters of Jordi and her family, the players, and the often loveable inhabitants of a big city with a deceptive lightness of touch that seduces the reader. Siren reveals the often unnoticed life of a city while simultaneously drawing us deep into a dark and troubling world. What happens has an unexpected effect on all those who are both directly and indirectly involved. The result is a powerful and haunting novel about cultural stereotypes and expectations, love, loneliness, family and our struggle to connect. In so many ways, Matthews subtly sounds the siren on sexual violence and its prevalence in our culture. 'Anyone reading this novel will be aware of similar instances of exploitation, cover-ups and 'blaming the victim' that Jordi suffers. Siren is a gritty and honest novel in its depiction of sexual violence against young women. It deals with the experience and aftermath of violence that neither sanitises the experience physically or psychologically. This is an important work.' Tony Birch, author of Ghost River and The Promise.

In this Bancroft Prize-winning history of the Civil Rights movement in Atlanta from the end of World War II to 1980, Tomiko Brown-Nagin shows that long before "black power" emerged and gave black dissent from the mainstream civil rights agenda a name, African Americans in Atlanta questioned the meaning of equality and the steps necessary to obtain a share of the American dream. This groundbreaking book uncovers the activism of visionaries--both well-known figures and unsung citizens--from across the ideological spectrum who sought something different from, or more complicated than, "integration." Local activists often played leading roles in carrying out the agenda of the NAACP, but some also pursued goals that differed markedly from those of the venerable civil rights organization. Brown-Nagin documents debates over politics, housing, public accommodations, and schools. Exploring the complex interplay between the local and national, between lawyers and communities, between elites and grassroots, and between middle-class and working-class African Americans, Courage to Dissent transforms our understanding of the Civil Rights era.

In Fighting for Dignity, Sarah S. Willen explores what happened when the Israeli government launched an aggressive deportation campaign targeting newly arrived migrants from countries as varied as Ghana and the Philippines, Nigeria, Colombia, and Ukraine. Although the campaign was billed as a solution to high unemployment, it had another goal as well: to promote an exclusionary vision of Israel as a Jewish state in which non-Jews have no place. The deportation campaign quickly devastated Tel Aviv's migrant communities and set the stage for even more aggressive antimigrant and antirefugee policies in the years to come. Fighting for Dignity traces the roots of this deportation campaign in Israeli history and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and shows how policies that illegalize and criminalize migrants wreak havoc in their lives, endanger their health, and curtail the human capacity to flourish. Children born to migrant parents are especially vulnerable to developmental and psychosocial risks. Drawing on nearly two decades of ethnographic engagement in homes and in churches, medical offices, advocacy organizations, and public spaces, Willen shows how migrants struggle to craft meaningful, flourishing lives despite the exclusions and vulnerabilities they endure. To complement their perspectives, she introduces Israeli activists who reject their government's exclusionary agenda and strive to build bridges across difference, repair violations of migrants' dignity, and resist policies that violate their own moral convictions. Willen's vivid and unflinching ethnography challenges us to reconsider our understandings of global migration, human rights, the Middle East— and even dignity itself.