Fleur Una Maude Beale ONZM (née Corney, born 22 February 1945) is a New Zealand teenage fiction writer, best known for her novel I Am Not Esther, which has been published worldwide.

Her 2001 novel Ambushed was a finalist for the Junior Fiction section of the 2002 New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards.

She is also concerned about the fate of her cousin, Miriam, who disappeared shortly before her arrival, but is barely mentioned by the family, other than her being "dead".

She knows that not all the children of the cult members are completely indoctrinated: her cousin Daniel wants to be a doctor, despite the proscription on higher education, and her schoolfriends misbehave when they are away from home.

Despite this, the cultists are depicted as brutal opponents of the brave doubters, largely as a consequence of using Kirby's perspective.

One of the sequels is written from the perspective of her cousin Rebecca, who is moving to Nelson with the rest of her family, as shown at the end of I Am Not Esther.