Jennifer Smart worked as a director's assistant and scriptwriter for the popular TV soap Home and Away for five years before deciding to write about it.
Her first book, The Wardrobe Girl, has all the ingredients of a chick lit bestseller destined to find its way into Australian handbags.
There's Tess Appleby - a heroine with a broken heart - a hunky actor who flirts with her, a new job on the fictional soap Pretty Beach Rescue, a high-maintenance mother and crazy sister.
Smart's depictions of the type A personalities Tess encounters, and the awkwardness of working with an ex, are light-hearted and entertaining.
But serious topics underlie the humour - hitting rock bottom, turning to alcohol to cope with unhappiness, being misunderstood.
Smart manages to combine a behind-the-scenes peek at life on a soap with sharp observations about relationship dysfunction in the family and the workplace.
Tess Appleby is a feisty, down-on-her-luck protagonist whose problems and stalled career are a perfect vessel for self-deprecating humour.
* The Wardrobe Girl, by Jennifer Smart, is published by Random House Australia in March 2014. RRP $32.99
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