To Distraction

By: Stephanie Laurens

Narrated by: Jill Tanner

Length: 17 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

Stephanie Laurens' New York Times best-selling Regency romances delight her countless fans. Visions of elegance and finery abound in her tales of temptation and unbridled passion.

The distinguished veterans of the Bastion Club represent England's finest eligible bachelors. Among them is Deverell, a strapping man about to meet his match in the alluring Phoebe Malleson.

©2006 Savdek Management Proprietory Ltd. (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC

Narrator needs to breath, full stop means pause

I love Stephanie Laurens. I did not love this narrator. I sincerely hope they were not told it has to be xyz length, because they read well with the exception that the running together of sentences and paragraphs spoilt the flow and detracted from the overall process.
i actually got out my hard copy to see what was going on.

Need better voices for characters

The male voices should sound like males not females. Character voices should vary to distinguish them from one another, otherwise great book.

unconventional brides also have challenges

Date: 1816 May
Chronology: set immediately after A FINE PASSION, before Beyond Seduction. This doesn’t match Laurens’ chronological list, but the story starts when Deverell says he’s come back from Warnefleet’s wedding.
Deverell, now Viscount Paignton, seeks advice from his Aunt Audrey who refers him to her goddaughter Phoebe Malleson as the best candidate for his wife. Audrey advises he’ll have to convince Phoebe to marry him since she’s decided not to marry at all. When he meets Phoebe he agrees, but the challenges are greater than he originally expected.
Malcolm Sinclair aka Thomas Glendower first appears in this book and later shows up in The Taste of Innocence with the diary, then has his own story in Loving Rose.
Tanner still mispronounces much. The Brit accent does not excuse or cover it up. Sad.

Not As Good As Others

Plot just took too long to get there. I just kept speeding it up to get to the end...just not my favorite.

Performance is horrible

What made the experience of listening to To Distraction the most enjoyable?

The story

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Jill Tanner?

Simon Prebble

Any additional comments?

Jill Tanner is the most boring narrator of all! I've only bought the audiobook to follow the story. Sometimes she is the reason to not purchase the audiobook and read the paper back myself instead

I love SL, but...

I love her books and her characters, but I forget how wordy she can get. I don’t think the early Cynster books were quite so wordy. And as much as I love listening to them, it’s harder to go past the unimportant stuff and move on because you can’t skim through as you go.

That said, I do love this series as well as all her series. I’m currently going through and listening based on the timeline of the books instead of the order written. I will keep through to the end and I’m glad that there are various narrators rather than just Jill Tanner. While I don’t hate her narrating, I do find that she has very few distinct voices and so the sound and tone of the books and characters tend to be the same. It might be one of the reasons I felt like this book was a little too similar even though the actual storyline was different.

stephanie laurens at her best

excellent narrator. I like the idea behind the bastion club novels: extraordinary men, long-term spies, needing wives because of their social station, but wanting to find them on their own terms, not those of polite society-the ton. it does remain to be seen how much plot variety the author will be able to bring to this particular formula, but I have faith in her.

Worth it

I have been a long time fan of Stephanie Laurens, this book did not let me down. She once again carried me away to her wonderful world. Worth the time. #1 Fan in San Diego/Oregon

Plodding

Way too long. I listened on my iPad in bed so I could skip many portions when I fell asleep. This story could have been done in 10 hours - less than the 18 hours it is. I will avoid future books by this author that are this long.

Another man learns about love

Another in the Bastion Club series of aristocratic men who worked as Crown spies until after Waterloo.
He comes off as a real bastard in the beginning by ignoring her opinions and just steamrolling over her wishes regarding his pursuit of her for his wife. He slowly begins to show more redeemable tendencies as he catches her in a questionable situation and, when he tries to intimidate her, becomes horrified and ashamed when she responds in terror. He does stalk her to find out if she has become involved in something nefarious, but once he discovers that she has established a working safety net for endangered women and has, herself, become endangered, he begins to work with her group as a support person. Even when it becomes apparent that there is organized crime involved, he gathers the support of his colleagues to help, and each of them (even Dalziel) operates with her as the leader.
I have yet to comprehend why the publisher chooses female narrators for this series.
Jill Tanner is a very good narrator, but if these are books themed upon the Men of the Bastion club.....