Sophie Hannah's first book The Hero and the Girl Next Door (Carcanet, 1995), earned her a remarkably big audience: her broadcasts and public readings throughout the country have proved extremely popular. Her poems entertain with a cunning use of traditional form, moving beyond satire to the heart of the modern matter: loves, lusts, losses, worldly foibles, how people see themselves and how others see them, the problems of learning to drive and learning to live with a car. The Poetry Review declared, 'Shall I put it in capitals? SOPHIE HANNAH IS A GENIUS.' Be that as it may, Hotels like Houses provides a new range of romantic ironies, light and dark laughter, for her readership.