Jean Ure is a Young Adult and Childrens author who has been writing since her first novel was published when she was still in school. This is an (incomplete) list of her books:
- Dance for Two (1960)
- See You Thursday (1980)
- A Proper Little Nooryeff (1981)
- Hi There, Supermouse (1983)
- After Thursday (1984)
- You Win Some, You Lose Some (1984)
- If it weren't for Sebastian... (1984)
- Nicola Mimosa (1985)
- One Green Leaf (1987)
- The trouble with Vanessa (1988)
- There's always Dannie (1989)
- Say Goodbye (1989)
- Plague 99 (1989, Lancs Book Award 1990)
- Skinny Melon and Me (1996)
- Becky Bananas, This Is Your Life (1997)
- Whistle and I'll Come (1997)
- Just 16 (1999)
- Fruit and Nutcase (1999)
- Secret Life of Sally Tomato (2000)
- Shrinking Violet (2002)
- Bad Alice (2003)
- Passion Flower (2003)
- Secret Meeting (2004)
- Is Anybody There? (2004)
- Sugar and Spice (2005)
- Boys Beware (2006)
- Gone Missing (2007)
- Star Crazy Me (2008)
- Fortune Cookie (2009)
- Love and Kisses (2009)
- Frankie Foster - Fizzy Pop (2011)
- Frankie Foster - Pick n' Mix (2011)
- Frankie Foster - Freaks Out (2012)
- Ice-lolly (2012)
- Just Peachy (2013)
- Jelly Baby (2014)
Her work contains examples of these tropes:
- Absent-Minded Professor: Em and Bitsy's father in Jelly Baby definitely qualifies, being a forgetful, clumsy history professor.
- Absurdly Divided School: Sort of. The school in Sugar and Spice is divided up into little gangs, and they're very elitist. There's even a gang of kids who are remnants and leftovers. Ruth isn't accepted into a gang, which is why the other kids pick on her. One of her primary school friends admits to only joining a gang because they threatened her if she didn't join.
- Affectionate Nickname: Laurel's mother used to call her Lol or Lolly, short for her childhood nickname "Lollipop". Andi also calls her Lollipop or Lolly most of the time. At the start, Laurel doesn't want anyone else to call her Lol because it was her mother's name for her, but she has come to terms by the end and almost everyone calls her Lol.
- Cresta and Charlie in Boys on The Brain call each other "Pilch", based on part of a quarrel they had when they were younger where they called each other a pilchard, and even refer to themselves as such when asking about each other. Near the end of the story, Charlie suggests they start calling each other by their real names, but both of them have trouble breaking their habit.
"There's a fish on the phone. It wants to speak to another fish.""Oh, you mean Pilch."- Rachel in Secrets and Dreams is thrilled when the girls in her dorm nickname her "Daffy", despite the fact that it comes from a yellow dress she wore that everyone else thought was horrible.
- Bitsy in Jelly Baby is really called Flora. While she doesn't mind the nickname, she does quite like it when Caroline calls her by her real name, liking how much more grown-up it sounds. Her big sister Emily, though, prefers to be called Em.
- Despite it probably being fake, Shay calling Ruth "Spice" comes off as this (both girls also notice that their surnames match - the nickname comes from Ruth's surname, Spicer, and Shay's surname is Sugar, hence the name of the book).
- All of the Other Reindeer: Ruth in Sugar and Spice is picked on by almost everyone and her friends in juniors won't even talk to her. Most of the kids in school are in gangs and Ruth isn't, so they all gang up on her. This is the reason she is so happy when Shay starts looking out for her.
- Alpha Bitch: Julia in Sugar and Spice and Marigold in Star Crazy Me. Consequently, both despise the protagonists for unknown reasons.
- Lucy somewhat in Secret Life of Sally Tomato.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Lisa, Kez and Sammy to Ruth in Sugar and Spice, Ellie to Tamsin in Love and Kisses twins Fergus and Flora to Peaches in Just Peachy, Samantha "Afterthought" to Stephanie in Passion Flower and Sammy and Tizz to Ruby in Lemonade Sky.
- Author Appeal: Many of the characters in the books are animal lovers and/or dancers, both reflections on Jean herself, who went to a stage school and considered becoming a dancer, and has had many pets from rescue centres.
- Becky Bananas: This Is Your Life even features an author named "Jane Rue", a clear anagram who reflects Jean's views on animals "talking".
- Jean Ure is a vegetarian and it crops up a lot in her novels, with most of her protagonists either already being vegetarian or becoming one by the end of the book. It borders on Writer on Board in some cases, especially with Harmony in Secret Life of Sally Tomato and Petal in Pumpkin Pie.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Fourteen-year-old Stephanie in Passion Flower wishes her mother would ease up on not letting her go to late parties or hang out with boys. After her father lets her do these things without any concern, she feels very out of her depth and finds herself wishing that he hadn't let her go after all.
- Best Friend:
- Many in the books. Becky and Sarah/Zoe in Becky Bananas, Cherry and the Melon in Skinny Melon and Me, eventually Violet and Katie in Shrinking Violet, Megan and Annie in Secret Meeting, Jo, Dee and Chloe in Is Anybody There?, Shay and Ruth in Sugar and Spice, Emily and Tash in Boys Beware, Honey and Jade in Gone Missing, Scarlett and Hattie in Over The Moon, Tamsin and Katie in Love and Kisses and Peachy and Millie in Just Peachy.
- All the girls in the Girlfriends series count, although they each have an in-school friend - Chloe for Polly, Jemima for Keri, Marigold for Frizz and Joel for Lily (although she initially hopes he'll become her boyfriend). Additionally, Polly and Frizz are closest to each other, as are Lily and Keri.
- Best Friends-in-Law: Emily and Tash in Boys Beware are stepsisters who were born on the same day, and are not only best friends, but so close that they almost share the same brain.
- Betty and Veronica: The Secret Life Of Sally Tomato has Salvatore (Archie) having a crush on the beautiful but self-serving Lucy West (Veronica) and is only willing to exploit the crush when she feels it suits her. Meanwhile, Harmony Hynde (Betty) develops a crush on Salvatore, while he only sees her as a Stalker with a Crush, then later, a close friend.
- Beautiful Singing Voice: Carmen in Star Crazy Me. Her voice is so good that a former opera singer notices her busking and becomes her singing teacher, despite Carmen being rather rude to her. The book ends with Carmen winning the rock music contest at her school.
- Also Mrs P, Carmen's self-proclaimed singing teacher. She recalls at one point when she was at school, two of the girls discussing who would get the part in a musical, but agreeing although she was the best singer, she was too ugly. However, she went ahead and got the role and became famous, even though she had no virtue but her voice.
- Big Sister Bully:
- Sarah to Alice in Bad Alice. She constantly invades Alice's space, and insists she's the better daughter, and every fight they have ends in Alice getting the blame. Alice claims Sarah has always hated her, since they were both adopted.
- Rachel to Annie in Secret Meeting to a lesser degree. She is meant to watch Annie and Megan during the holidays, but keeps reminding them to stay out of trouble when they're not doing anything wrong. Even worse, on more than one occasion, she forces them to run around outside for hours, which was uncalled for. She does show Big Brother Instinct when Annie and Megan appear to have gone missing.
- Black Gal on White Guy Drama: In Family Fan Club, Rose lectures Laurel about only going out with white boys, thinking she should go out with black guys due to them being black. Understandably, Laurel doesn't take it well.
- Brainless Beauty:
- Emily and Tash sometimes come off as this, due to their only interest being boys and dating. Tash is a more extreme version, possibly due to Emily's narration.If Nan thought I was being obvious with Wackeen, she should have seen Tash playing up to Orlando!
- Scarlett from Over The Moon sees herself ten months earlier as this, often calling herself 'pathetic' and cringing over her previous vanity. Scarlett's mother hints that she used to be this, and regrets not using her brains at Scarlett's age.
- Emily and Tash sometimes come off as this, due to their only interest being boys and dating. Tash is a more extreme version, possibly due to Emily's narration.
- Brainy Brunette: Hattie from Over The Moon, as the brains to Scarlett's beauty.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Maddy from the dance trilogy is viewed this way with her dancing. People keep thinking she's not committed enough. Contrasted with her friend Caitlin.
- Child Prodigy:
- Pip in Pumpkin Pie, to the point that he tries to commit suicide when he comes second in class instead of top.
- Eleven-year-old Rose from 'Family Fan Club. She comes home one day upset because her English teacher didn't believe she'd written her own essay due to how advanced it was.
- Cool Aunt: Cass to Bitsy and Em in Jelly Baby, having served as their maternal figure after their mother's death when the girls were toddlers.
- Cool Big Sis: Petal to Jenny in Pumpkin Pie, although they initially have very separate lives.
- Cool Kid-and-Loser Friendship: How Ruth views her friendship with Shay from Sugar and Spice. According to her, Shay is gorgeous and cool, while she is the most uncool kid in her class.
- Crash-Into Hello: Tamsin and Alex first meet in Love and Kisses when Alex nearly hurts Tamsin by running into her with his wheelbarrow. Then he asks her out.
- Crazy Cat Lady: Stevie from Ice Lolly is a textbook example.
- Cult Defector: Rachel's mother from Secrets and Dreams. She ran away, met Rachel's father and returned pregnant, eventually dying in childbirth and leaving Rachel to be brought up in the cult.
- Daddy's Girl:
- Scarlett from Over The Moon. Scarlett's dad dotes on her, even letting her buy a second party outfit when she spills coffee over her first one (both of which were very expensive).
- Jenny from Pumpkin Pie is her dad's favourite, because he's a chef and she's the only one in the family who allows him to spoil her with food.
- Samantha from Passion Flower often uses her dad as an argument with her mother and adores him. She eventually makes a turnaround when he won't let her take her cat to France, stating that she hates him.
- Cherry is initially this to her dad in Skinny Melon and Me and has a very tense relationship with her mum and stepdad. This behaviour seems to stem from her despising her stepdad as her mother mentions in an email that Cherry was extremely supportive towards her at the time of the divorce.
- Deadpan Snarker: Occasionally, Ruth in Sugar and Spice can dish out."Send some people for a brain scan and you wouldn't find any brain."
- Shay's even more prone to this, even in her diary. Even when she's picked up for shoplifting and her dad tells her off, she reacts this way.
- Don't Split Us Up: The reason the girls in Lemonade Sky try to survive on their own. They fear that if anyone knows their mother isn't at home, they'll be taken into care and split up.
- Double Meaning: Alice's story in Bad Alice hints at the problems at her home, using characters to represent her parents and nay-sayers. She gets quite upset when Duffy misunderstands the meaning initially.
- Embarrassing Last Name: Pratt, for the girls in Jelly Baby.
- False Friend: It's eventually shown that Shay is usually this to her friends. However, subverted when Ruth refuses to go along with her and their friendship becomes real.
- Fat and Skinny: The Pratt sisters in Jelly Baby: Em takes after their father, being long and skinny, and Bitsy is round and short like their mother.
- Frying Pan of Doom: In Passion Flower, Stephanie and Samantha's parents split up after their mother throws a frying pan at their dad.
- Give Geeks a Chance:
- Gender-reversed in The Secret Life Of Sally Tomato, where Salvatore eventually decides to accept geeky Harmony as his girlfriend after a kissing game where he discovers his crush's lips match her stuck-up personality.
- Gender-reversed with Ali in Boys Beware. Tash and Emily are concerned that she'll never find a boyfriend because she doesn't bother with her looks and is only interested in astronomy and Star Trek, but they eventually find out that she's been dating Gus due to their shared interest, and she even dresses nicely the night everyone goes out to the pizza restaurant.
- Gossipy Hens: Only really one, but Karina Koh in Sugar and Spice has something negative to say about every kid in school. According to her, everyone in her year has parents who are insane, on drugs or who sleep around. She discovers early on that Shay has been expelled from other schools and becomes disappointed when Ruth makes out that Shay had already told her. She also gets excited when she hears from another girl at the end of the book that Shay was in juvie for shoplifting.
- Granola Girl: Emily in Jelly Baby is passionate about animal rights, recycling and a dedicated vegetarian.
- Happily Adopted:
- Seemingly should be the case in Bad Alice with Alice and Sarah, but Sarah acts spoilt and attention-seeking, while Alice has developed a reputation for lying and dangerous fits of anger. Their adoptive father is sexually abusive towards them. Alice eventually gains the courage to tell someone, and the Social takes both girls away.
- Eventually played straight with Laurel from Ice Lolly, who is adopted by her mother's best friend.
- Gus "The Radish" in the Foster Family series. Subverted with Sam, who is only fostered, but the family considers her as one of them and after the first book, she settles well with them.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: We discover in Ice Lolly that Laurel's mother was this with Andi, and that they'd originally planned to raise Laurel together, but things didn't work out. Andi adopts Laurel at the end.
- High-Powered Career Woman: Pumpkin Pie has Jenny's mother, who's always flying in and out as a major career girl, while her dad is the stay-at-home parent. Jenny's friend Saffy even thinks that it's weird to have the mother be the workaholic.
- Incompatible Orientation: Joel and Lily. She is heartbroken when Joel confides he is gay, although her friends had suspected it before.
- Irony: Cherry despises her stepfather "Slimey" Roland in Skinny Melon and Me, as she resents him for taking up her mother's attention and her living space and badly misses her Dad, but ironically Roly is the only adult in Cherry's life who sympathizes how difficult adjusting to both her parents divorcing and remarrying is, while Cherry's mother is generally incredibly unsympathetic to her daughter's feelings and accuses her of being "ungrateful" for not instantly adoring and accepting a new parental figure in her life.
- Caroline, the father's new girlfriend in Jelly Baby, struggles the most to get along with Em, the sister who is the most determined to try and make things work out between her and their father.
- Juvenile Hell: Shay writes to Ruth from one of those at the end of Sugar and Spice.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover:
- Laurel from Ice Lolly, which gets her into trouble over money when her cat starts having problems with his kidneys.
- Daisy from Family Fan Club, a shy sweet girl who is very young for her age and goes outside in pouring rain when her cat goes missing.
- Samantha pesters her mother to get a kitten in Passion Flower and her dad inevitably caves and gets her one when they stay with him. At the end, it turns out that their mother had planned to get them a kitten when they came home, so Stephanie and Samantha have one each.
- Emily in Jelly Baby adores their cat Bella and is stricken at the thought that she can't sleep with her at night.
- Lovable Alpha Bitch:
- Fawn from Secrets and Dreams appears to be this, but becomes progressively crueler as she loses patience, although she returns to this characterization by the end.
- Keri from the Girlfriends series. She's rich, beautiful, fashionable and often shows off about herself. But she's kind and generous in spurts, doing things like doing Frizz's hair to make her look cool and give her confidence, and telling off Frizz and Lily when they're messing around and preventing Polly from reading out her poem. Presumably also Chantal as one of Polly's friends, but it's not stated outright what kind of person she is.
- No Social Skills:
- Rachel from Secrets and Dreams is trying, but everyone thinks she's weird or crazy because of the way she behaves. She lived in a strict religious cult for most of her life which only recently broke up, but she's desperate to appear normal so won't tell anyone, meaning no one understands why she behaves so strangely.
- In Sugar and Spice, Ruth's former friend Millie states this as the reason Ruth gets picked on, adding that the reason people don't like her is because she unknowingly acts superior.
- Parental Marriage Veto: Not marriage, but in Love and Kisses, Tamsin is forbidden to keep dating Alex when her parents discover that not only has she been dating him behind their back, but that he is seventeen, four years older than her. When Tamsin finally tells Alex that she is only thirteen, not fifteen like she said, he admits that her parents are right and gently tells her they have to break up.
- One-Steve Limit:
- Averted, though not in the same book, but Sugar and Spice and Lemonade Sky feature a five-year-old named Sammy as a protagonist's younger sibling. It differentiates them slightly, however - in the former book, Sammy is a boy, in the latter, Sammy is a girl.
- Similarly, a character called Rachel appears in both Secret Meeting and Secrets and Dreams, although the characters serve completely different purposes.
- Secrets and Dreams is narrated by Zoe, a name used for one of Becky's friends in Becky Bananas, This Is Your Life.
- Flora in Jelly Baby is the same name given to one of Peaches' sisters in Just Peachy while Emily is also the name of a girl in Boys Beware.
- Laurel is the name of the protagonist in Ice Lolly and the eldest sister in Family Fan Club.
- Parental Neglect: Shay from Sugar and Spice suffers this most of the time. Her diary often refers to her mother as "the Vampire" and her dad as "the Invisible Man" because her mother is always at beauty conferences and her father seems to never be there."She thinks he's here, he thinks she's here. GOD THEY'RE SO USELESS!"
- Platonic Life-Partners: Carmen and Josh in Star Crazy Me. They became friends in Year Seven, and even wrote the song Carmen sings at the talent show at the end. Carmen's mother refers to Josh as Carmen's boyfriend, but Carmen is quick to insist that Josh is just a friend. Even at the start of the story, Josh has already confided to Carmen that he's actually gay.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: In Pumpkin Pie, Jenny and Saffy end up having a massive argument, with Saffy accusing Jenny of doing nothing but obsess about herself since she started dieting and taking Drama Club way too seriously, and Jenny countering that Saffy is being incredibly insensitive and unsupportive and that it was her idea to join Drama Club but all she wants to do is meet boys. They end up making friends again in the end.
- Cherry and Skinny Melon have a fight during the book as Cherry blows up at Skinny when Skinny continually defends Slimy and says to Cherry that "nothing he ever does is good enough for you", to which Cherry retorts that she never asked him to and she doesn't need him acting like her father.
- Star Crazy Me: Carmen with both Indy and Josh. First, Indy hints about something she heard but then the bell rings for class and she has to go - but Carmen unreasonably threatens to never speak to Indy again if she hangs up. Later on, Josh tries to talk Carmen into going back to school and brings her nan into it, and Carmen loses her temper with him. He makes it clear he doesn't hold grudges as he texts her later on, but she doesn't know how to talk to him again, and is worried that Indy took her seriously when she doesn't try calling her back.
- Polar Opposite Twins: Violet and Lily from Shrinking Violet. Violet is shy and doesn't know how to socialize, and Lily has lots of friends and loves to be the centre of attention.
- Precocious Crush: Maya in Strawberry Crush has one on Jake Harper. She's only twelve, and he's eighteen. According to Mattie, this isn't even the first time this has happened.
- Prematurely Bald:
- Becky wakes up one day to find her meds have started making her hair fall out. Luckily, her mum buys her a wig that looks like her real hair.
- Zoe's hair falls out and she can't afford a wig, but she doesn't bother to wear a headscarf and just acts as if it's normal to be bald at the age of eleven.
- Psychic Powers: Jo and her mother from Is Anybody There? When holding an object and concentrating, Jo can feel and see things related to the person it belongs to. Her friends trick her into doing this for a missing person, leading her to making false guesses later on.
- Raised by Grandparents: Rachel in Secrets and Dreams lost her mother when she was very young and never knew her father. When Zoe goes to a sleepover with her, she guesses that Rachel's gran doesn't want her there.
- The Runaway: Jade and Honey. Jade is more of the attention-seeking variety (she has multiple arguments with her strict dad), while Honey is more of the Abused variety (her mother is alcoholic and is mentally abusive towards her daughter). Eventually, Jade decides to go home and her relationship with her dad improves, while Honey decides to stay in London, and although Jade has to tell the authorities where she is, her mother lets her go.
- Jade's friend Darcy mentions that she used to run away a lot, for varying amounts of time. Mostly attention-seeking.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Emily and Tash's reaction when Ali dresses up, mainly because most of the time, she does nothing with her hair and wears shapeless baggy clothes when they know she could look beautiful if she made an effort.
- Shout-Out:
- Bad Alice continually makes references to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, especially within the story Alice is writing.
- Family Fan Club is one huge love letter to Little Women/. In one scene, Jazz even compares herself and her sisters to each of the girls in the book - pretty Laurel as Meg, ambitious Jazz as Jo, shy sweet Daisy as Beth, and self-opinionated brainy Rose as Amy.
- Shrinking Violet: Violet from the book of the same name, but also Ruth from Sugar and Spice, Megan from Secret Meeting and Peaches from Just Peachy. Special mention goes to Daisy from Family Fan Club, who has a massive triumph when she is brave enough to collect an effort award at an assembly, something that she would usually be too shy to do.
- Theme Naming: The sisters in Family Fan Club were all named after flowers.
- Too Smart for Strangers: A plot point in Is Anybody There?. Jo's problems mostly start because she accepts a ride home from her best friend's brother, and then realizes he's taking her the wrong way. This later on turns out to have a legitimate reason, but he didn't tell her at the time. The book later continues to hammer home that a stranger is always someone's son or brother and he was still enough of a stranger for this trope to fit.
- Wacky Parent, Serious Child:
- Cresta and her mother in Boys On The Brain. Cresta wants to pass her exams at school and vows to date no boys until she goes to uni, but her mother is scatty and goes out partying all night with her friends, and has had several bad experiences with men, but still expects Cresta to start dating.
- To a point, Mandy to her parents in Fruit and Nutcase, but because she's still pretty young, she goes along with some of the fun things her parents do.
- Ruby and her mother in Lemonade Sky. She always has to remind her mother to take her pills for bipolar disorder, and when she disappears, Ruby's methodical behaviour suggests that she's used to taking care of her sisters.
- Stephanie and her dad, Daniel, in Passion Flower, as Daniel is charismatic and irresponsible while Stephanie is a worrier and quite responsible.
- In Family Fan Club, the sisters' dad is fond of saying that eleven-year-old Rose is the only real adult of the family, even though she's the youngest.
- Weight Woe:
- Carmen angsts about this for most of Star Crazy Me.
- Jenny in Pumpkin Pie becomes bulimic when her dad starts calling her Plumpkin and she starts feeling self-conscious about her weight.
