Poet-turned-thriller writer Sophie Hannah's new collection, Pessimism for Beginners, is a knowing assault on the iniquities of love - playful, funny and not always as simple as it seems.

The pessimism of the title is a reluctant defence mechanism for those who don't dare to hope, scared by the prospect of emotional ruin: 'Praise you deserve, that I would not give, / I will withhold.'

Hannah's female voices are always trapped, mocked and wrong-footed by their own desires, but she gives gentle hints that writing may be a way to triumph: 'At the moment I still prefer you / To the poems about you. / I expect this won't always be true.'