[1] The book is Dolan's debut novel, an intimate exploration of a millennial teacher in Hong Kong who becomes entangled in a love triangle with a male banker and a female lawyer.

Exciting Times follows Ava, a young Irish woman who moves to Hong Kong to teach English after graduating from college.

As she adjusts to the bustling city, she meets and becomes romantically involved with Julian, a wealthy British banker, and her life is complicated when she intimately bonds with Edith, to whom she is also attracted, as she is bisexual.

When Ava meets Julian at a bar, this sparks initial flirtation that sets the stage for her to explore new relationships in Hong Kong.

By attending parties and social events, they bond over shared interests, such as dining, and experience the vibrant nightlife of the city; they explore landmarks, and their friendship offers a space to discuss relationships, love, and identity openly, and express their insecurities or turbulence.

Throughout the book, she struggles to articulate her feelings to them accurately, leading to a sense from Julien that she's ambivalent to him and emotionally-distant, leaving him confused about her reluctance to get vulnerable and closer.

To escape as a temporary reprieve, she travels to Taiwan to attend a wedding; while there, she devotes moments for introspection, and concludes that a full confession when she returns would remove some level of guilt and provide her with clarity.

[5] The New York Times described it at as a novel where "jealousy and obsession, love and late capitalism, sex and the internet all come whirling together in a wry and bracing tale of class and privilege.