Julia Bell is a novelist and Lecturer on the MA Creative Writing at Birkbeck. She has written two novels for Young Adults – MASSIVE (Young Picador) which has been translated into seven languages and published in the US by Simon and Schuster, and DIRTY WORK, published by Young Picador in January 2007 and by Walker Books in the US in December 2007.

Julia is the co-editor of the bestselling Creative Writing Coursebook, also published by Macmillan, and she is currently working on a third Young Adult title as well a a longer adult title.

Hope's mum doesn't get her. In fact, Hope knows that as far as her preoccupied parents are concerned, she's hopeless. She may be spoilt - but money doesn't buy happiness.

Oksana doesn't even have a mum. And her dad and brother are miles away, left behind in Russia. She thought Europe would offer a better life - instead, bought and sold into prostitution, she feels dirty and used. Then, Oksana and Hope are thrown together in the most terrifying circumstances imaginable.

Their only real chance of escape lies with each other, but how do two teenagers with so little in common find the way...? This is a tense, shocking novel - with a hint of hope.

*50p from each copy sold of DIRTY WORK will be donated to Unicef.*