Review: "When We Were Married" by Daniel Quentin Steele

When We Were Married - Volume 1 The Long Fall by Daniel Quentin Steele
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I bought "When We Were Married" for my Kindle a long time ago, and it's taken until now for it to reach the top of my book pile.

It's a difficult book to review. It's a good story, a court-room drama from an author who clearly knows the background of Florida court procedures, about Bill Maitland (an assistant prosecuting lawyer), the collapse of his marriage, and how they intertwine. It's not giving away much of the plot to say that the lawyer extrapolates that his marriage is dead and his wife is cheating on him simply because she once refers to their marriage in the past tense (hence the title). To me, that seems a slip of the tongue, but in "When We Were Married" it turns out to be the kiss of death. What follows transforms of the lives of both Bill and his wife Debbie, both at home and at work.

The most controversial part of this novel will be its sex scenes - there are quite a few. I think I prefer my sex scenes to be a little more tender, a little less physical, and I can see why some reviewers felt that this book would be more popular with men than women. I'm not sure that's right, by the way, but it's not reading material for your local church's book group. It's pretty graphic in places and there's not a lot of romantic love in here. Personally I wasn't offended at all, but some might be.

One concern about "When We Were Married" I had was about its values. The message sent out strongly in this novel is that men and women have a duty to look after themselves physically so that they remain sexually attractive to their partners, and I felt uncomfortable with that. (Throughout, we are reminded that it's the main cause of Bill's and Debbie's marriage breakup.) The only plus point is that least it was the man who was being criticised, not the woman.

For all that, I enjoyed "When We Were Married", and I read it very quickly, too. It's well-written (there's a clever little literary trick at the start of each chapter), well-researched, and those slight reservations didn't put me off at all. The guy can certainly write well. One last warning - is this a spoiler? It turns out that "When We Were Married" is only the first in a series - of four, I think.

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