Night Diving

by Michelene Esposito

This title is both a young woman's coming-out story and a 30-something, coming-of-age journey. It is the story of Rose Salino.

Genres: Fiction, Lesbian

221 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Michelene Esposito writes contemporary adult and YA fiction that explores real life in all its complexity with a generous helping of humor. Praised by Library Journal for writing with "intelligence and subtlety," her stories capture the authentic, dramatic, and often laugh-out-loud funny dynamics of family, relationships, and human connection. Her debut novel, Night Diving, was recognized with the ForeWord Magazine Silver Award.

An Italian-American New York kid living in the San Francisco Bay Area, Michelene is an unapologetic "glass-half-full" gal who loves sharp banter, romantic slow burns, long rambling walks, coffee (the elixir of life!), and stories that deeply celebrate friendships and family.

She has an exciting summer ahead, with the release of her women's fiction novel, Mermaid, coming in July 2026, followed by her YA romance, Spinning Into Gold, in August and the first book in her Adult Romance series in September 2026. When she isn't writing, you can usually find her on the hunt for her next shortcut life hack, walking along the bay, noticing and sharing those everyday shots of joy, or wrestling, dancing?—please let it be dancing!—with her latest manuscript.


Website: https://www.micheleneesposito.com/

Reviews

[Susana · Rating 4 out of 5]

When she was nine, Rose's world fell apart as her mother got sick with manic-depression. Now, at thirty, she is again seeing her carefully controlled world fall apart, and is forced to look at her life. In Night Diving, Rose dives into her past and tells us of her childhood and of growing up with her best friend Jessie, who like her is the product of a dysfunctional family. But the question Rose has to face in the book is how to find the courage to finally take risks, in order to move out of her carefully constructed controlled life into the world of possibilities that a life with Jessie represents.

Night Diving deals with issues such as mental illness, sexual abuse and cancer but Esposito manages to keep her writing balanced and with enough sense of humor so that the book doesn't turn into a melodrama.

[Chrissie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the back and forth in time format to this book. Characters were developed well. The lesbian romance was part of the book, yet the lesbian characters were layered and multifaceted. Overall, I'd recommend this book.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read in 2003 (originally published in 2002). My review from then: From the cover blurb: "Rose Salino lives the San Francisco chic lesbian lifestyle. She loses her job as a chef and her lover (the boss who fires her) on the same day. Her grandmother dies the next day. When she goes home for the funeral, she sees Jessie, her childhood best friend and first love ... Rose is forced to look at her life and find the courage to create a future that is true to her real self and her heart." The book goes back and forth between the present and Rose and Jessie's childhood relationship, and does it well. The relationship and its emotions are complex, deep, and realistic. There are issues of child sexual abuse and mental illness, among others. The author is a clinical psychologist, and I very much liked her insights about love, relationships, and healing. An excerpt:

Love is a lot of things, different for different people, but if there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that love is not the string orchestra and rose dozens. Those are just the symptoms. Love is knowing a person's tender spots, the places where the skin is transparent, not fully formed, like the clear membrane that holds a yolk round even after you separate it from the white. Love is standing guard over a beloved's yolk.

The book ends on this note:

Seriously, I guess the key is, first, to know your scared place or your wounded place or your empty place or whatever you call it. Make sure you know what it looks like, so you don't accidentally sit on it or take it out with the recycling. Then you need to find a few people - and quality is more important than quantity - who respect your place, not people who tell you that they've seen plenty of places like yours and it's going to take a hell of a lot more than 409 to clean it up, that it's clearly beyond repair. You want people who you would trust to babysit your place, bring it some cocoa with those mini marshmallows on those unscheduled alien abduction days, for instance. I think if you can pull all that together, you're pretty set and you can go about your business of tending to your place with a clear head. I think that's really the most you can ask for.