Tag Archives: Meghan O’Brien

Rachel reviews The Night Off by Meghan O’Brien

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The Night Off by Meghan O’Brien Amazon Affiliate Link

I’m always on the hunt for good, well-rounded, lesbian erotica and I was so thrilled to find Meghan O’Brien’s novels from Bold Strokes Books. I started with The Sex Therapist Next Door (2018) and really enjoyed it, but The Night Off (2012) was such a fun read that I felt I had to review it. Although this one is from a few years ago, I definitely want to underscore that I often struggle to find lesbian erotica that I find enjoyable (that’s also written by and for queer people) and everything I’ve read so far by O’Brien has been great.

The novel is told from the dual perspective of Emily Parker and Nat Swayne (having two narrators is common for O’Brien). Emily works at a law firm while raising her college-aged little sister. Born into a life of chaos and raised by drug-addicted parents, Emily relies on control, order, and responsibility to dictate her busy life. She’s so used to caring for her sister and dismissing her own wants or needs that when she books a night off with an escort agency, she goes all out, crafting her ultimate fantasy. Nat Swayne, Emily’s high-priced escort, both loves her job and excels at it in almost every way. For Nat, numbered among the benefits of working as an escort is never having to become emotionally involved. However, things change when Nat meets Emily, and both of their highly cultivated boundaries are crossed, but not without complications.

This was a really fun read! With erotica, it’s definitely exciting to read a book that’s both sexy and well-rounded. These characters (Emily and Nat, but the other secondary characters as well) are thoroughly developed, with issues and biases and fears that they struggle to get over throughout the book. The pacing was also strong, with a logical sequence of events that didn’t take away from the erotic elements. I was totally captivated by these characters and this plot and I felt as though this had all the right elements of erotic fiction. The book wasn’t overdone, it wasn’t unbelievable or wooden, and I felt like it thoughtfully treated some of the more painful issues that were brought up. The Night Off was genuinely fun and refreshing to read.

This book is the perfect combination of character and conflict. It absolutely is a staple of the genre, and it’s main focus is the erotic plot, but to me, it doesn’t cut corners on the story itself and I think The Night Off is really worth picking up if you’re looking for this kind of book.

Please visit Meghan O’Brien on Twitter or on her Website, and put The Night Off on your TBR on Goodreads.

Content Warnings: Shame, discussions of addiction.

Rachel Friars is a creative writer and academic living in Canada, dividing her time between Ontario and New Brunswick. When she’s not writing short fiction, she’s reading every queer novel she can find. Rachel holds two degrees in English literature and is currently pursuing a PhD in nineteenth-century lesbian literature and history.

You can find Rachel on Twitter @MsBookishBeauty or on Goodreads @Rachel Friars.

Danika reviews Thirteen Hours by Meghan O’Brien

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I know, I know. “What is that cover??” I can explain. (No I can’t. It’s a terrible cover.)

There’s a useful term they use on Book Riot: “genre kryptonite“. It describes those tropes that immediately make you want to pick up a book. The buzzwords that leave you helpless to add a book to your TBR. For me, one of my genre kryptonites is enclosed spaces. I’m not sure why (claustrophilia?), but any story that has characters trapped together in an enclosed space piques my interest. So when I heard about a lesbian erotica novel that had two character trapped in an elevator together for 13 hours, I knew I was going to read it eventually (even though I don’t usually gravitate towards erotica).

This book was both better and worse than I was expecting. From the first few pages, I knew I wouldn’t be rating this book highly. I knew that part of the tension of Thirteen Hours was that the two women didn’t get along before they got stuck in the elevator. What I wasn’t expecting was the instant loathing that I had for one of the main characters. Dana is working at her office when she is surprised by a stripper, who has apparently been hired by a coworker for her without her knowledge. Obviously it’s fair that Dana feels super uncomfortable and even angry about this. But she reacts by being over-the-top cruel and insulting to this woman, including saying that she’s afraid she’ll “catch something” from her.

I realize that this was supposed to be the basis of their dynamic when they get stuck in the elevator, but I was so immediately sympathetic to Laurel (the stripper) and repulsed by Dana that I couldn’t understand why Laurel was so understanding about it. She seems to think that her defending herself and reacting to Dana’s insults is just as bad as Dana’s spontaneous vitriol.

On top of not liking their romance, I found the elevator scene to be less engaging than I was expecting. It was basically just them chatting, getting to know each other. And then playing truth or dare (and, obviously, sexy shenanigans follow).

What I was surprised by, though, was the second part of the book, which shows their emerging romance. If I had read that part without reading the first couple chapters, I would have enjoyed the book as a whole a lot more. The depiction of BDSM, especially, is well done. They have clear communication and consent, and there’s a playfulness to their sexuality.

Unfortunately, the underlying disgust with sex work that permeates this book really detracts from its strong moments. Laurel does defend herself and stripping, but she does so by distancing herself from “hookers”. And despite her defense of other women who strip, she quits that job to make Dana happy.

So although I actually quite liked their relationship together post-elevator, this wouldn’t be a title I would recommend (even if it’s your genre kryptonite, too).

Kelley O’Brien reviews Camp Rewind by Meghan O’Brien

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I’ve been excited to read Meghan O’Brien’s Camp Rewind since I first read the synopsis last year. A book about two women of color dealing with very real and contemporary problems like social anxiety and online harassment and misogyny? Sign me right up!

Despite my excitement for the book, it somehow got pushed back due to my own real world problems. But when I found that I had a few Audible credits to use up, I grabbed the chance to listen to a good book.

It’s been a while since I’ve listen to a book because I’ve lost some of my hearing and can only listen in quiet rooms. However, I had a really great experience listening to Camp Rewind and might just give it another listen again soon.

Alice Wu and Rosa Salazar meet at the titular Camp Rewind, a camp for adults who want to unwind for the weekend. However, the heroines both have other reasons for being there. Alice has extreme social anxiety and wishes to expand her social circle, so she applies for camp at her therapist’s request. Rosa, however, just wants to forget who she is for a little while after publishing an article about a video game that some men took offence to and decided to ruin her life over. The two meet and connect right away, entering into a “what happens at camp stays at camp” sort of relationship. Soon, they must deal with feelings that weren’t supposed to happen.

I should probably warn that this book contains a lot of sex. It’s all very well-written and didn’t feel out of place to me, especially given the way O’Brien describes their connection and Alice’s desire to finally be with a woman and her finally coming out as a lesbian.

There is also a lot of pot smoking and mentions of rape threats and other threats of violence against women, though I don’t recall it going into too much detail.

Alice and Rosa fall for each other very quickly in the novel, which might be a genuine concern for some. However, it felt organic to me. They were exactly what the other needed. Not that they needed to be in a relationship to grow as people, but that they needed someone to support them and be there for them, something they each lacked in their lives.

As someone with anxiety, I can honestly say that O’Brien does a great job crafting a mentally ill character. Alice never overcomes her anxiety. It’s always still there, even when she’s pushing herself to be braver, to do things that scare her because she wants to help or to be with Rosa. The relationship doesn’t magically cure Alice of being mentally ill. She still has her bad days and is a work in progress.

The most interesting aspect of the novel is O’Brien’s feminist critique of online harassment, particularly towards women in gaming and the men who disagree with and subsequently harass them. She doesn’t get too preachy about her opinion of them. She doesn’t have to, letting it show through Rosa’s character and the growth she experiences as someone who lets herself believe she isn’t worthy of love and affection to someone that embraces it.

If you enjoy books about characters who are allowed the room to grow and develop, books about women of color who are given agency, books with delightful side characters, and books with feminist themes, I highly recommend giving Camp Rewind a shot.