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Meet Celine and Luke. For all intents and purposes, the happy couple.

Luke (a serial cheater) and Celine (more inter-ested 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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Naoise Dolan is an Irish writer born in Dublin. Her debut novel, Exciting Times, was a Sunday Times bestseller, widely translated, and optioned for television. She has been short-listed and long-listed for several prizes, including the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. She lives in Berlin.

REVIEWS

"Using daring, exciting sentences and close, sharp observation, The Happy Couple is a brilliant contemporary novel." -- Colm Tóibín

"A fun, addictive read laced with astute observations about modern romance." -- Vogue (UK)

"A warm and sympathetic novel...funny and direct." -- Guardian

"A sophisticated character study of a young couple coming to terms with their relationship, in this biting, whip-smart look at modern love and the tangled messes we leave behind us. I am fully in awe of Dolan's talent. And so glad my twenties are over." -- Douglas Stuart, author of Young Mungo and Shuggie Bain

"I pure LOVED The Happy Couple. So witty, observant, wise and funny. Nihilistic about heteronormative relationships but so charmingly done I barely noticed. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed it." -- Marian Keyes

"The Happy Couple is a dazzling follow-up to Exciting Times. Dolan spins her magic again with humor and insight and the sharpest of prose. Not a word out of place." -- Katherine Heiny, author of Standard Deviation and Early Morning Riser

"Dolan's precisely observed writing about human interactions is matched by her acute takes on everything from Irish emigration to Goldman Sachs...This novel is a joy to read." -- Literary Review

"Dolan, whose debut novel Exciting Times was a storming success, is sure to bring her sparkling wit and insightful understanding of human relationships to this second outing." -- Irish Independent

"Reading Dolan is like watching your favorite dramedy: the gossip is juicy, the stakes are ordinary yet elevated, and you're in a little bit in love with everyone." -- LitHub

"Quietly introspective and dryly funny. . . . Dolan writes beautifully about yearning." -- Kirkus Reviews

"In Dolan's clever second novel, the will-they-or-won't-they, modern marriage plot and hard deadline make for a very enjoyable rush of a read." -- Booklist

"Naoise Dolan's droll exploration of the lead-up to a London wedding peers into the entwining life of a young couple, from her beautiful ex to his initial reluctance to wed." -- Vanity Fair