Manview: Untouched by Anna Campbell

For this Manview, I wish to tender a huge apology to the lovely Anna Campbell because I ADORED this book. Unfortunately for my man, Mr Manview did not agree with me. This was a DNF for him and it makes me very sad. Because of how much I loved this book when I read it, I wanted Steve to love it too. As you can see, this is REALLY a Manview.

If you are new to Manviews, you can find previous Manviews here.

Untouched by Anna Campbell
Purchase link: Amazon

My rating: 

Heat rating:      

In one or two sentences can you sum up your overall impression of this book and how you feel about it?

I need to preface this by saying I have the greatest respect for the author, Anna Campbell, and her skill as a writer and success are witnessed by her being a finalist 8 times (unbelievable!!!) for the recent ARRA awards. However, I struggled with this book and attributed some, but not all of that, to bringing a 'manview' to this review.

I thought the book was reasonably well written, but I found the story line dull, unbelievable and slow-paced. While it had an interesting twist to start the book with both the hero and heroine being imprisoned (in a stately fashion, but imprisoned none-the-less). From 10% in, I felt the time I was putting into reading was not rewarded with enough new stuff going on. The pace of each one discovering the other was just too slow.

I made it 58% in, finished Chapter 18, did not start 19 as I did not want to read about Grace being healed after her attack. I thought it would be too painful to read!

What did you think of Matthew and Grace?

I felt I was being demanded to like them, given their characteristics, niceness and support for each other, but felt the characters where manufactured instead of revealed. And I felt Matthew was a fake. There is no way, no matter how much noble blood you possess, that after being tormented, deemed mentally unfit, imprisoned your adult life (and cut off from the world - it's not like he had access to the Internet back then!) and abused along the way, that he could have been as astute, insightful and caring as he was. By all rights, he should have been a stark, raving lunatic when he was presented with Grace.

Matthew was a virgin in this book until he meets Grace. What do you think of this usual spin on a virgin hero?

Building on the last point, and knowing why Grace was brought to him, it is far more probable he would have immediately raped her, or at least been all over her, unknowing of love or the art of seduction. Yet, he kept his virginity intact, even though they slept in the same bed together, she threw herself at him several times and he obviously had raging hormones that needed release. No man has that type of control. And he was too accomplished a lover on his own without knowledge or experience. I would have much more enjoyed Grace teaching him while she was teaching herself than having him so naturally become an accomplished lover through intuition.

And as a man, I get a little bit jealous when Matthew has a penis so large, he cannot fit inside of her, yet within a minute makes her so relaxed, she opens like the Red Sea to be entered easily. This goes beyond romantic fantasy.

Matthew and Grace are held in captivity for the majority of the book. What did you think of that limited exposure to the outside world and the enforced time and space they shared together? How do you think this affected the flow and pacing of the story?

This part of the story just dragged for me. Each day seems liked a week in passing with nothing changing. I would have been more interested had they been planning an escape, or doing some other big project than just gardening. While I thought it was an interesting opening, and knew something was going to happen sooner or later, the later just kept getting later and later and I finally gave up.

You did not finish this book. Can you say why?

For the reason mentioned just above. Had there been some sort of side story of Grace's family looking for her and making progress, I could have stuck it out, but that was not to be.

Was there anything you did enjoy about the book?

Not really. The only thing I enjoyed was Grace finding out she had a gigantic sexual appetite, and falling in love with sex. I have given another book a 2-star or 2.5-star review and found some things I really did enjoy and I finished that book. But this book was flat for me throughout.

What's your next read?

Blindsided by Gwen Hernandez, my second review by an American romance writer!

(Deanna) Manview for Blindsided here.

View all my reviews


About the author



Anna Campbell:  Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads


About the reviewer



Steve Shipley: Website - Facebook - Twitter - Amazon


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