No one ever accused the campaign finance reform movement of being long on sizzle and short on substance, but there's one former fundraising heavyweight who's seen the political money machine from the inside and is aiming to infuse the popular perception of dialing for dollars with a little sex appeal.

Nicole Sexton, former finance director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee has written a novel, Party Favors, that seems to take its cues from Bridget Jones and BCRA alike:

Sexton has written a novel — not a how-to book, but a novel — about campaign finance.

The book jacket of Party Favors doesn’t feature a beastly man in tight, ragged shorts and work boots but a silhouette of the Republican elephant inside a sun-shaped silver ornament. Not exactly the stuff of tawdry romance, but Sexton’s book does promise to recount juicy stories of “politics and greed.”

Sexton acknowledges that “when you say campaign finance … people glaze over,” but that didn’t stop her from using her 15 years in political fundraising as inspiration for a story that follows protagonist and narrator Temple Sachet’s similar career track and personal life.

Good beach read for the Beltway insider set? Sexton's no longer raising money for candidates, and she'd like to see some reform in how campaigns get financed:

Sexton, who now works in government relations for Bono’s ONE campaign, says she sees a great need for reform in political fundraising. She left a year after she hit a nadir, on election night 2004, and hopes her book will open other people’s eyes to her belief.

“I would like for there to be a real shakeup, and I have no delusions that my book is going to do that,” she says, adding: “But maybe there’ll be some conversations around dinner tables.”