Shine, Darling

She writes with such fecundity and truth I think I shapeshifted

Shine, Darling explores the depths of sensation and identity. Its luminous poems dance between public spaces, from motorway services, where the speaker awaits the 'pink voila' of pregnancy tests, to the roofs above dinner parties where they trap lovers

Frears' work is ideal for poetry newbies - the intriguing narration will immediately draw you in. She splices humour with thought-provoking imagery and Fleabag-style talk-to-camera moments that will make you feel seen

Shine, Darling is a startling debut, as provocative as it is playful and tender, navigating a wild, modern terrain touching often on female desire and glazed with dark terror. These poems are uncompromising and intelligent, fresh and newly disruptive

Shine, Darling is one of the best debuts of recent years

Fizzes with insistent energy... full of crystalline images and metaphors.... Frears is excellent on sexual politics, the end of girlhood

Ella Frears burst on the scene in 2020 with Shine, Darling: poems that were bold, funny and sexually frank

Frears's poems are places of feverishness, extra-sensitivity, and suggestion . . . They lightly take your pulse, then ask why it's accelerating

Uncompromising, intelligent, surprising, accessible and sharp . . . These lyric poems have a clarity and straightforwardness that only a special kind of attention, and a certain kind of fearlessness can achieve

This poet is a bit special. She's exciting, a bit scary and sort of brilliant