Ruby Blues by Jessica Rudd - Book Launch

Jessica Rudd talking about Ruby Blues.

Much like Jessica Rudd’s writing, the launch of her second novel, Ruby Blues, was a sassy mixture of style and intelligence. Mia Freedman, former editor of Cleo and friend of Jessica’s, officially launched the novel, raving about Jessica’s innate sense of plot and wicked sense of humour.

When Mia first discovered the character of Ruby Stanhope in Campaign Ruby, she immediately transferred her girl-crush form Jessica to the lead character who leapt off the page. Mia describes Jessica’s books as ‘fresh’ with writing that ‘zings’ and ‘one-liners that you want to read to passers by.’

Returning the girl-crush, Jessica expressed her wish that there were more women out there like Mia who helped each other out. Women are under-represented in parliament and boardrooms so Jessica believes it is natural that women compete with one another, but imagine if it were different. Ruby Blues is about women networking to bring each other up instead of tearing each other down, the expectations put on women and the expectations women put on themselves. It also has more hilarious insights into first-term governments, the media, fashion, and relationships that make politics sexy, fun and a living breathing human thing instead of background noise to the balancing act of family, careers and everyday life.

Mia Freedman and Rhys Muldoon at the launch

Jessica wants people to love her characters and love themselves. After reading Ruby Blues that shouldn’t be too hard, as Mia Freedman said, ‘We need characters like Ruby and we need authors like Jessica.’

Written by Natalie

Autographed copies of Ruby Blues are available here.