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Book Review: When We Were Married: The Long Fall, by Daniel Quentin Steele

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when we were marriedPartial Description from Goodreads:
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.

Review:

**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 finds 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 into 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. And while I have no problem with this in erotica, it felt out of place in a romance. But as 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 four 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 gets forgotten, and if you forget that there is a price for something, you also forget to appreciate the person who paid for 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?

Book Review: In the Blood, by Scott Skipper

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in the bloodDescription from Goodreads:

George Washington Skipper was a man with secrets. He kept multiple wives in two states, spawned at least sixteen children, adopted three, spent four years in the Confederate Army, was shot twice and lived to eighty-five. Then there was one more thing and a hundred years later the family is still scandalized over it.

This fictionalized account of my ancestor’s remarkable life will probably get me struck from the Thanksgiving guest list, but those who aren’t related will be amazed and amused. Then again, are you sure we’re not related? Washington was born when John Quincy Adams was president and he died the week before the Titanic sank. During that long life he did some outrageous things. This account follows his early days in the Carolina low country, running from county to county avoiding the whipping post, through his Civil War battles, the misery of Reconstruction and his personal tragedies. In the Blood is based on fifteen years of genealogical research and punctuated with a little good clean fun.

Review:

When settling down to read a novel based on someone else’s genealogical history, there is always a niggling fear that it will be something like sitting through your neighbor’s vacation slide show, interesting to them but interminable to you. In the Blood is nothing like this. Being based on genealogical research, there is a certain amount of so-and-so beget so-and-so, who, despite being married to so-and-so beget so-and-so, but it is also a relatively fast-paced read based on a truly interesting character who also happens to find himself in gripping circumstances.

George Washington Skipper is amorous, to say the least, swept up in the Confederate spirit of the American Civil War, enlightened about the true doldrums of that (and probably every) war, discouraged by the perceived injustices of Reconstruction, and eventually the father of dozens of children by a variety of women, very few of whom he ever supported in any fashion. Ultimately, he is seen to be an even-minded good man, but he systematically wrongs woman after woman throughout the book. However, given the time in which he lived, it is, unfortunately, true that his actions may not have been as unusual as it seems to the modern reader.

For me, there was also a special thrill. As a member of ‘the 10th’ in the Confederate Army, Washington and his cohorts marched back and forth through middle Tennessee. This is home turf for me and it was really interesting to hear about the skirmishes that happened in towns I’ve lived in and around.

For those who have an interest in the Civil War and the life of the average man (ie, not the famous names of the times) In the Blood is a definite recommended read. I think there is a tendency to idealize the past, and this book provides a refreshingly realistic look at a difficult period in American History. Check it out.

Book Review: Rook, by Richard A. Shury

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rook cover

Description from Goodreads:

The year is 2188. Long ago, Earth was invaded by marauding aliens; these aliens were defeated, but their technology remained. Using it, humanity has reached out into space, but only to continue the conflicts of Earth. Rook is the story of a hardened mercenary who steals valuable items – for a price. After he steals a vaccine for a deadly virus, he finds himself in a crisis of conscience, one that will put him in the firing line of anyone who stands to profit from the virus’ spread. Will he be able to survive long enough to do the right thing?

Review:

Rook can essentially be reduced to one man’s attempt to do the right thing, possibly as an attempt at redemption. The character Rook is a highly skilled assassin/thief who suddenly develops a conscience and sets out on an audacious journey to protect the innocent. It’s a thankless job, but he feels he has to do it. The book really is a one-man show. It focuses almost exclusively on the title character.

Here’s the thing, though… a lot of galactic history is given, which, while interesting, really isn’t necessary unless the book is going to be part of a series (thereby giving it purpose it currently lacks), but none is provided for Rook. This means that the reader has no idea why he should suddenly decide on a course of action that is obviously presented as a breach of character. About 65% in there is a little bit of internal dialogue (should that be monologue if he is talking to himself?) about it, but how he feels about his actions still doesn’t explain why he took them in the first place. This makes the book feel pointless…or rather beginning and endless. The reader doesn’t know what is being built up to or when it has been accomplished.

I have considered the possibility that the story is actually an allegory of how small one man’s efforts are to the whole, even when he is exceptionally well trained and giving his whole. Like Rook no matter how hard one tries, 99.999% of the world (galaxy in this case) won’t know you exist, even fewer will know what you sacrifice, and everything just keeps moving along regardless.

Now, having said all of that I have to praise Shury’s writing skill. The book is incredibly well written. The fight scenes are exciting, the plot engrossing, and the technology and galactic history well thought out. There is even a timeline at the end. If this were a longer piece or part of a bigger whole, it would have seemed more important. But it is clear that Shury took some time to really establish the back story to this story, and I, for one, would be really interested in reading more.