When We Were Married - Volume 1 The Long Fall

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When We Were Married - Volume 1 The Long Fall

by Daniel Quentin Steele (Goodreads Author)

4.73 of 5 stars 4.73 · rating details · 11 ratings · 6 reviews

Four words ended their marriage. Four words ended his life. And changed hers forever. Four words made both of them face terrible truths about their marriage.
After those four words, nothing would ever be the same. For them. For their children.
Those words would touch the lives of cops and criminals, judges and prosecutors and defenders, the best of men and the worst of them....more Four words ended their marriage. Four words ended his life. And changed hers forever. Four words made both of them face terrible truths about their marriage.
After those four words, nothing would ever be the same. For them. For their children.
Those words would touch the lives of cops and criminals, judges and prosecutors and defenders, the best of men and the worst of them.
The ripples cast by those four words would stretch from the warm waters of the Caribbean to the arid deserts of Mexico, from the government halls of Paris to the moonlit dunes of Matanzas south of St. Augustine.
And, when it was all over, it would finally come down to three lives. And there could be no happy ending.
“When We Were Married" is the story of a marriage of a driven prosecutor and a beautiful professor that dies, and what happens afterward.
It has psychiatrists and assassins and CIA Black Ops teams, the protective head of a deadly Columbian Crime Cartel, a cold blooded and savage murderer who is determined to save the wife and family of the prosecutor who sent him to prison, the Angel of Death, the Shark and the Iceman. It features loyal friends, friendly enemies and really, really bad people.
The first volume of four, "The Long Fall" introduces Bill Maitland, a short, fat, balding Assistant in the Florida State Attorney’s Office in Jacksonville, Florida in 2005. He is married to a tall, gorgeous, blonde big breasted Associate Professor of Economics at the University of North Florida (UNF) in Jacksonville. Despite his personal shortcomings, he is the man who actually runs the State Attorney’s Office. He’s lost touch with his wife and his two children as the demands of his job have swallowed up his personal life over the past five years he’s spent as the actual top prosecutor for a three-county North Florida circuit.
He is, despite the demands of the job, an ignorantly happy man until the night his wife utters four fatal words. That Freudian slip unleashes his pit-bull instincts upon his wife and results in a discovery that changes both their lives forever.
In this first volume, an 18-year marriage seemingly doomed from the start, blows up. The impact of its destruction on Maitland, his wife, and a host of lawyers, cops, judges, criminals and other occupants of the intertwined worlds of law and order and the criminal underworld is shown.
In the courtroom, Maitland will face baby killers and stone cold drug lords, mercy killers and deadly grannies, killer cops and drug cartels. And in his private life, he will find himself caught in an emotional trap from which he cannot escape.
Against these and all odds, Maitland is armed only with a superb legal mind, the powers of the prosecutor’s office, bulldog stubbornness and a compulsion to do the right thing no matter what the cost. And a basic decency that gives him surprising allies from the Florida underworld to a Columbian crime cartel.
Maitland, if he survives several attempts on his life, will finally have to choose between an old love and a new one, and whichever choice he makes, he is going to lose.(less)

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Published October 2011 by WEM Enterprises

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Jun 11, 2012 Sadie Forsythe rated it 3 of 5 stars

**Warning this review uses language that some might find inappropriate, but I wish to give an indication of that used in the book.**

I'm really conflicted about how to rate this book, because there are some aspects of it that I really like. Steele is obviously a talented writer and shows a broad and varied knowledge that makes for an interesting assortment of characters. However, there are also some aspects of if that practically curled my toes and they aren't easily (or at least briefly) explain...more **Warning this review uses language that some might find inappropriate, but I wish to give an indication of that used in the book.**

I'm really conflicted about how to rate this book, because there are some aspects of it that I really like. Steele is obviously a talented writer and shows a broad and varied knowledge that makes for an interesting assortment of characters. However, there are also some aspects of if that practically curled my toes and they aren't easily (or at least briefly) explained.

I think this book comes across as very male. There isn't anything wrong with that. The author, primary protagonist and narrator are male so it shouldn't be at all surprising that, despite being a romance of sorts, it is also very macho. But as a female reader there were times I felt alienated by the writing. For example, almost every description of a woman starts (and sometimes ends again) with a description of her tits, twitching ass, and whether or not she was pretty, sexy and/or fuckable. I'm left wondering if this isn't one of those differences between men and women situations. While I read these descriptions as fairly objectifying, I accept the possibility that a man might simply see them as descriptions of beautiful women.

While there aren't very many actual sex scenes, at times When We Were Married reads like Ron Jeremy's script closet. Seriously, every cliche male sexual fantasy I could think of find its way into these pages in some way. Well...there aren't any fembots, but to be fair they would have been pretty hard to fit in the plot. There's the big breasted nymphomaniac blond who can't get enough, the cruise ship director, the fit barely (or not quite) legal girl crawling into your bed, the stepdaughter, the older woman, younger woman, woman in uniform, the boss' mistress, office subordinate, friend's wife, girlfriend's slutty best friend (or at least friend), the divorcee, rapes, gang bangs, orgies, and more women begging to be taken in every conceivable way with no expected emotional return than I could count.

The sex scenes themselves are crude. No one in this novel makes love, or even just has sex. Everyone fucks porno style. It's coarse and raw, even when the characters are meant to be bonding on a deep emotional level. But like I said, while people talk about sex constantly there isn't that much of it, so I was able to take 400 or so pages before even my rather mild inner feminist started to take umbrage. (I read an e-version so I'm not certain of the actual page count.) Up to this point I would have given the book an easy 4 stars, but the book is so long and I was eventually worn down. Despite all of this the book isn't really about sex. It plays a large part in causing the turmoil that sets the scene in motion though and does have a legitimate place in the novel.

What I really did like about When We Were Married was the depiction of Bill as a good man who strives to do the right thing. He really breaks the mold of the powerful alpha male. He starts the book as a short, fat, balding middle aged man. He is a king in his working life and when the day is done he truly enjoys going home to his wife and children. There are none of the common inferences that such dedication is a chore and given the chance he would gladly ease out from under the burden of fidelity. I liked this about him. I also enjoyed the message that there is always a price for doing the right thing. This is something that get forgotten and if you forget that there is a price for something you also forget to appreciate the person who paid it.

I think When We Were Married is a worthy read. It's written for adults and I think Men will probably enjoy it more than women. But there is a good story here and isn't that what really matters?
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Jan 04, 2012 Bill rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is one of the keepers, I read this continuously over 2 days, reading late into the night, and if I have any complaints it is I have to wait for the next 3 books to come out to find out what happens to the characters!

Like other books in the genre, it has the sex, the action and some larger then life characters and situations, but that only makes it even more a fun read! Unlike other books I have read in this genre, it is not surface level fluff, there is a lot of depth to the character...more

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Mar 19, 2013 Eric Mondschein rated it 5 of 5 stars

Daniel Quentin Steele is a writer! He knows how to develop characters, spin a yarn, and tell a tale. WWWM has depth, emotion and appeal. It makes you at times angry, sad, frustrated and to be sure, engaged. His characters come to life on each page, some you wish you could get to know, others you want to smack upside the head. I will not give anything away in this story or the others that follow. If you enjoy great writing, interesting characters and a great plot, I highly recommend this book. If...more

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Nov 27, 2011 Daniel Steele added it · (Review from the author)

W.W.W.M. is a GREAT read!

W.W.W.M. is a GREAT read! Story line is very real & true to life. Suspense, murder, love, sex, violence, romance, and a GREAT STORY. It has dark places and high places and in between places and runs you thru all kinds of emotions. Super well written. Simply could not stop reading it once I got started.

michael77080

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Dec 15, 2011 Martim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Compelling! Can't wait to see the rest.

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Apr 05, 2013 Jennifer Dawn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Really a great read and I'm looking forward to picking up the sequel.

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Apr 11, 2013 Addisu Abebe added it

Apr 11, 2013 Juwairia Boodhoo rated it 5 of 5 stars

Mar 28, 2013 J.J. Alleson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Mar 13, 2013 Gordon marked it as to-read

Shelves: by-the-bedside

Feb 22, 2013 Nisrine marked it as to-read

Feb 14, 2013 Claire rated it 5 of 5 stars

Jan 19, 2013 Kathleen Yoshida rated it 4 of 5 stars

Jan 03, 2013 Robin marked it as to-read

Shelves: requested-reviews

Nov 18, 2012 Sadiki is currently reading it

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Oct 08, 2012 Pacts rated it 5 of 5 stars

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May 15, 2012 Arnie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Jan 04, 2012 Natasha marked it as to-read

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About Daniel Quentin Steele

Daniel Quentin Steele is a Jacksonville author and native Floridian. A former educator, he has been a journalist and public relations professional. He has covered and reported on crime and cops, courts and trials in several Florida cities. He has worked as a speech writer and political and media consultant. He has had one novel published in the U.S. and Great Britain as well as short stories publi...more

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