JEAN URE had her first novel, Dance for Two, published while she was still at school and has been writing ever since. She studied at drama school, where she met her husband, and is now a full-time author of books for both young readers and adults with more than fifty titles to her name including Plague 99, which won the l990 Lancashire Book Award, and a series of novels for the Corgi Freeway list, including A Place to Scream. She has also established herself as a perceptive and witty writer for much younger readers with such titles as Help! It's Harriet! (Collins), Captain Cranko (Walker) and Spooky Cottage (Heinemann).