[Review] When We Were Married - Daniel Quentin Steele

When We Were Married - Daniel Quentin Steele

Warning: This series... (currently clocking in at nearly 800K words total) Is NOT FINISHED.

Edit: It's been brought to my attention that it appears the author of this series has passed away. Such a shame. It's a good story overall. RIP.

I just spent the better part of two days binging the series (the part that is free on Literotica) and have a very Love/Hate relationship with it. Where this story 'finishes' on Literotica isn't the actual ending. In some ways, it does leave off in a nice place, where people can make up their own minds about what happens. Come to their own conclusions. It still leaves things undone.

So... what is this story?

At the beginning, this story is about a middle-aged attorney and his wife and two teenaged children. Couple things you need to know about these characters (that the author will be sure to rub in and repeat far too much) are that Bill (our attorney husband) has let himself go. He's flabby. Balding. Not a slob but out of shape and doesn't seem to care much about his health. He's a great attorney, but he's been absent from his home, neglected his marriage and relationship with his children. Debbie (Bill's wife) is a professor and has big boobs. Yes, I said that flippantly, but this author absolutely has a fetish for boobs. Big Boobs. Stacked women! Women with mammory's. Boobs. Boobs. BOOOOOOOOOOBS!!!!!

Sorry, but this author has a tendency to constantly talk about women's chests. This is a defining characteristic of every single female character in this series. They either have huge jiggling boobs or small chests (which, to Steele, is a negative overall for women).

Everyone in this series is constantly sex-crazed. Horny. Fucking everything that moves. Women are constantly on the prowl. Men are dirty cheaters. Walking boners. I'm not kidding. Everyone wants to fuck everyone. Sexual appeal is the first thing we essentially learn about nearly every character (especially women) that shows up.

That being said, these characters do transcend their physical characteristics, though often for the women, those traits carry over into how they conduct themselves. Sex is used as currency with women in this series to a huge degree. Practically every woman is doing something with her body (whether its just flirting and flashing a little cleavage, or full on letting them use them for any sort of satisfaction the men want).

Steele does write dynamic and deep characters. Though some are fairly shallow in their view of people's morals (besides the morals of our MC, Bill) they do have depth. Faults. Strengths. Relationships. Dreams. Steele may write his characters with his penis, but at least its not one that shallow and uncaring. He has created amazing characters that you very quickly get invested in (especially our two MCs).

Catching on to the Love/Hate? We've got dynamic, deep characters you grow to love quickly. But they are sooooo shallow sometimes. Debbie thinks with her boobs more than she thinks with her brains early on. And this is a good character fault and trait to explore. And to Steele's credit, he does this. He doesn't brush it off, but tackles it very well overall. But we get so much repetition about Debbie and her boobs... I'm starting to see this:



This is true for several of the female characters in this series. They are defined by their boob size. Still in depth and dynamic, but... do they have big boobs? or small? this is the eternal reality and question for this author.

No shade to boob lovers. But he could have toned it down a bit.

The meat and potatoes of this story, at the beginning anyway, is that one night four words change Bill and Debbie's marriage. "When We Were Married". When Debbie utters these words accidentally, Bill becomes immediately suspicious due to his nature as a prosecuting attorney and from there his marriage spirals. Discovering his wife's emotional infidelity (and subsequent physical cheating) their marriage begins to come to an end.

I'll try to steer clear of big spoilers. But this is the essential catalyst to the story. You get invested quickly. With Bill and Debbie and their children and how everyone is making bad decision, but also understandable ones. A marriage neglected leads to a wife (who we also constantly hear is far too beautiful for Bill) she seeks out someone that makes her feel pretty and good and like a woman again. It has twists and turns and it crushes your heart for all the characters (though initially Debbie's character is simply very selfish and narcissistic, but we get more depth to her as we move through the story).

Had the series simply focused on this core element - Their marriage and how it breaks down - I would probably be praising this story far more than I am.

Steele is a good author. No question. They have written amazingly deep characters and the situation they set up is compelling and really makes you want to take the journey with them.

But... it doesn't seem like Steele wanted to stick with writing a story about a divorced couple struggling to figure out their lives. Instead... things slip into Law and Order territory. Mix in some Grisham-esque Thriller like elements about murderers, crooked cops, cartels, etc, and this series slipped into the sort of crime show territory you used to see on TNT or whatever 3 letter channel those shows tended to broadcast on.

I skimmed those parts. And they were heavy. And long. And though they could add in some great character development, they were largely overblown and often needless. It was as if Steele wanted to write the Divorce story, but then got an idea for a thriller about an attorney and his struggle to be a good moral man and threw them together. The latter eclipsing the former.

I came in for the struggles of Debbie and Bill in their marriage and out of it. To see how they grew and changed. How they spiraled and recovered. I don't really care about serial killers, murderers, cartel members, etc. I get that they are part of Bill's job as a prosecutor, but there was just way too much of it. And it took over the bulk of the narrative.

You can absolutely skim those parts and lose nothing. And I mean nothing. There are a few places where the case matters. But even those could be trimmed to a third of their size in word count.

I said at the beginning that I binged this series. I did. I sat for hours just reading through it. Even skimming when I did, it still took time. This is because there's nearly 800K words! And... I'm a slow reader.

Even with it's flaws, Steele drags you in. It's the characters. Characters can make or break a story. You can have the best plot of all time, and if your characters are shit... then no one will care. The reverse is true. If you have a somewhat crappy plot, but your characters are amazing, people will read and read and read even though they hate the plot or think it's stupid. They want to see what happens to the characters they've become invested in.

This is what happened to me.

The characters drew me in.

My overall opinion of this story... Love/Hate. I love Debbie and Bill. I want to see where their relationship goes. And had the author focused more on that, I really feel like we would have this top tier story on our hands. However, this series is just too bloated. It's clear the author loves to 'hear themselves talk' and this is a struggle I think all authors have. We want people to see what we see and we can get carried away trying to show the reader.

I'm sure you're wondering if there's sex in this series, since it's on Literotica. Yes. It's fairly few and far between. And often you either come into the sex scene as it ends or when you do get to see it, the details are slim. Often they are just very quick scenes. Not bad, just quick.

Now, I'm biased. I love writing detailed sex scenes. But that's not for everyone, so... yeah.

So... there you have it. I'm not sure how I feel. This series isn't complete. It ends at a certain point on Literotica, and then the author has continued it on ebook on Amazon. But even that is not finished. (I had to do a little digging to see if it was worth buying and continuing. According to the reviews I've seen, it's taken 10 years to write the 4 parts that are available. And still the story isn't done. Can't tell if we have any word on if/when it will be. So I've opted to not purchase. But that's my choice, do as you want. Also, the continuing portion focuses way more on politics, cartels, etc. Just not my thing.)

I invested time in this and feel... unfulfilled. I guess I feel like Debbie. I didn't get what I wanted. So, I'm gonna have to go somewhere else to find it. Which is a shame. Because this is such a good story overall.

Should you read this? I don't really know. The first portion of this story is really engaging. The divorce story for me is the real depth to this story. And that depth gets lost in the far too detailed fluff of the Law and Order episodes this order clearly wants to write.

Did I waste my time... eh... I don't think so ultimately. But... man could this whole thing have been shorter by far.