Naoise Dolan

An intimate, bracingly intelligent debut novel about a millennial Irish expat who becomes entangled in a love triangle with a male banker and a female lawyer Ava moved to Hong Kong to find happiness, but so far, it isn't working out. Since she left Dublin, she's been spending her days teaching English to rich children--she's been assigned the grammar classes because she lacks warmth--and her nights avoiding petulant roommates in her cramped apartment. When Ava befriends Julian, a witty British banker, he offers a shortcut into a lavish life her meager salary could never allow. Ignoring her feminist leanings and her better instincts, Ava finds herself moving into Julian's apartment, letting him buy her clothes, and, eventually, striking up a sexual relationship with him. When Julian's job takes him back to London, she stays put, unsure where their relationship stands. Enter Edith. A Hong Kong-born lawyer, striking and ambitious, Edith takes Ava to the theater and leaves her tulips in the hallway. Ava wants to be her--and wants her. Ava has been carefully pretending that Julian is nothing more than an absentee roommate, so when Julian announces that he's returning to Hong Kong, she faces a fork in the road. Should she return to the easy compatibility of her life with Julian or take a leap into the unknown with Edith? Politically alert, heartbreakingly raw, and dryly funny, Exciting Times is thrillingly attuned to the great freedoms and greater uncertainties of modern love. In stylish, uncluttered prose, Naoise Dolan dissects the personal and financial transactions that make up a life--and announces herself as a singular new voice.

A Novel

Exciting Times

An intimate, sharply funny novel about a couple heading toward their wedding, and the three friends who may draw them apart Meet Celine and Luke. For all intents and purposes, the happy couple. Luke (a serial cheater) and Celine (more inter­ested in piano than domestic life) plan to marry in a year. Archie (the best man) should be moving on from his love for Luke and up the corporate ladder, but he finds himself utterly stuck. Phoebe (the bridesmaid and Celine’s sister) just wants to get to the bottom of Luke’s frequent unexplained disappearances. And Vivian (a wedding guest) is the only one with any emotional distance, and observes her friends like ants in a colony. As the wedding approaches and these five lives intersect, each character will find themselves looking for a path to their happily ever after - but does it lie at the end of an aisle? In her wry, sprightly, and unmistakable voice, Naoise Dolan makes the marriage plot entirely her own in a sparkling ensemble novel that is both ferociously clever and supremely enjoyable.

The Happy Couple

An intimate, sharply funny novel about a couple heading toward their wedding, and the three friends who may draw them apart Meet Celine and Luke. For all intents and purposes, the happy couple. Luke (a serial cheater) and Celine (more interested in piano than domestic life) plan to marry in a year. Archie (the best man) should be moving on from his love for Luke and up the corporate ladder, but he finds himself utterly stuck. Phoebe (the bridesmaid and Celine's sister) just wants to get to the bottom of Luke's frequent unexplained disappearances. And Vivian (a wedding guest) is the only one with any emotional distance, and observes her friends like ants in a colony. As the wedding approaches and these five lives intersect, each character will find themselves looking for a path to their happily ever after - but does it lie at the end of an aisle? In her wry, sprightly, and unmistakable voice, Naoise Dolan makes the marriage plot entirely her own in a sparkling ensemble novel that is both ferociously clever and supremely enjoyable.

Mother's Friend

Family News

Love In the Time of Youth

'I am fully in awe of Dolan's talent' DOUGLAS STUART 'A dazzling follow-up to Exciting Times' KATHERINE HEINY 'Beautiful' PANDORA SYKES Meet the wedding party: THE BRIDE AND GROOM Celine and Luke are meant to get married and live happily ever after. But Celine's more interested in playing the piano, and Luke's a serial cheater. THE BRIDESMAID Phoebe, Celine's sister, is meant to finish college and get a real job. Instead she pulls pints, lives with six flatmates, and has no long-term aspirations beyond smoking her millionth cigarette. THE BEST MAN Archie, Luke's best friend and ex-boyfriend, is meant to move up the corporate ladder and on from Luke. Yet he stands where he is, admiring the view. THE GUEST Vivian, Luke's other best friend and other ex, was meant to put up with Luke's bullshit when they dated. But she didn't. And now she is contented, methodically observing her friends like ants. As the wedding approaches and these five lives intersect, each character will find themselves looking for a path to their happily ever after - but does it lie at the end of an aisle?

A sparkling story of modern love, from the author of EXCITING TIMES

They said all manner of things about Batt O'Sheedy. They said he came from nothing in a tiny town in Leitrim. That he'd made a fortune investing in Dublin hotels, or cryptocurrencies, or was it airlines, or else that he was about to go bankrupt - no-one knew. That he was a monk, pure in his habits, or that he was a hopeless alcoholic. That he was gay or straight or maybe both. That his three children would each inherit ten million, or that they'd barely be able to pay for his funeral. This is the story of Batt O'Sheedy, of his family, of the Dublin town house - Victorian, magnificent, right by the sea - which represents the family's success, and its eventual tragedy. A cross between Succession, Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and Dickens' Bleak House, this is a big, compulsive story about the decline and fall of one family - inextricably bound up with the story of Ireland from the 1950s to today.

Family Matters

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER “Daring . . . a brilliant contemporary novel.”—Colm Tóibín An intimate, sharply funny novel about a couple heading toward their wedding, and the three friends who may draw them apart Meet Celine and Luke. For all intents and purposes, the happy couple. Luke (a serial cheater) and Celine (more interested in piano than domestic life) plan to marry in a year. Archie (the best man) should be moving on from his love for Luke and up the corporate ladder, but he finds himself utterly stuck. Phoebe (the bridesmaid and Celine’s sister) just wants to get to the bottom of Luke’s frequent unexplained disappearances. And Vivian (a wedding guest) is the only one with any emotional distance and observes her friends like ants in a colony. As the wedding approaches and their five lives intersect, these characters will each look for a path to the happily ever after—but does it lie at the end of an aisle? In her wry, sprightly, and unmistakable voice, Naoise Dolan makes the marriage plot entirely her own in a sparkling ensemble novel that is both ferociously clever and supremely enjoyable.

Naoise Dolan

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