Phoebe has secrets. One of them is that she assists maids and governesses who are being subjected to unwanted harassment and assault to escape their situation. Deverell observes such a rescue in progress and won’t rest until he knows the whole story and until he convinces Phoebe to be his wife. Meanwhile, Phoebe is finding Deverell difficult to resist. And she has more secrets.

But something awful happens to this nice little plot on the way to the happily ever after.

The author is an A-list author with Avon, and the nice little plot isn’t sufficiently long to fill a 400-plus page book. What’s an author to do?

Well, add sex, of course. Lots and lots of sex. And still more sex. (As a public service, here’s an abbreviated version. They fool around a lot. Lots of petting. Lots of panting. Then they finally get it on. Repeatedly.)

So the nice little plot gets down and dirty and sad to say, boring. This isn’t sex as an expression of attraction and affection between the hero and heroine. This is sex for sex’s sake. This is sex to pad the page count. The title gives it away: this is sex as a distraction. This is sex that gets in the way of the nice little plot. What a shame. Sex used to be so much fun.

To Distraction is much more Deverell’s story than Phoebe’s. Much of the action is seen from his perspective, and his behavior and motivation are pivotal to the progress of the plot. The general pattern of the story line is that Deverell acts, others react. Like many romance heroes before him, he came into the title unexpectedly, but when compared to his career during the Napoleonic War, he doesn’t find the duties interesting or fulfilling enough to consume all his time. He’s got energy and determination to spare. A heroine with secrets provides a welcome challenge.

Phoebe is more of a stock character, the twenty-something heroine who never wants to get married and has secrets. (Personally, I’m waiting for the heroine who actually sticks to her single status and forces the to hero accept it.) Phoebe does the usual. The usual in a Stephanie Laurens novel never involves holding out for very long. Phoebe is sometimes upstaged by her eccentric aunts – not a good indication of a strong heroine.

This is another in the author’s Bastion Club series, but the club’s other members play a relatively minor role. Knowledge of previous books and characters is not necessary. The three-heart rating on this review is something of a compromise. At first I was going to give it only two hearts because it’s overlong and the nice little plot gets derailed at frequent intervals for the gratuitous sex scenes. I finally decided that the nice little plot didn’t deserve to be lumped in with two-heart books that are devoid of such basics as a credible plot and decent characters and promoted it to three-heart territory. If the nice little plot weren’t so burdened by the sex overload, it might be higher.

I recommend that if you read To Distraction, you enjoy the nice little plot and unless you’ve never read a book by this author, skip right over the lengthy sex scenes. As the cover notes, this is the author’s twentieth Avon book. At this point, readers have been there, read that. Deverell and Phoebe don’t do anything that wasn’t done countless times in the previous nineteen books before the nice little plot comes to The End.

--Lesley Dunlap