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feebles640's review against another edition
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Rape, Infidelity, Abandonment, Misogyny, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Classism, Suicidal thoughts, Confinement, and Death
Minor: Child death and War
annamontana's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This book started slowly and built up. I liked it but it will not stay with me long.
I found the 2 stories interesting, Nan's backstory giving her character some likeability.
I found the 2 stories interesting, Nan's backstory giving her character some likeability.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Pregnancy, Infidelity, and Murder
Moderate: Child death
Minor: War
mlleblanc10's review
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Pregnancy, Kidnapping, Child death, Forced institutionalization, Infidelity, Sexual assault, and Rape
blancake's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Was Agatha Christie really necessary here?
I think I would enjoy it more if it were about some completely fictional people, especially since some very bold statements were made about and by real people who still have very much living relatives and offsprings. This made me quite uncomfortable while reading.
I think I would enjoy it more if it were about some completely fictional people, especially since some very bold statements were made about and by real people who still have very much living relatives and offsprings. This made me quite uncomfortable while reading.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Suicide, Classism, Child death, Death, Forced institutionalization, Murder, Rape, and Sexual assault
inthefallstateofmind's review
4.0
I am a fan of Agatha Christie's work and I have listened to a podcast about her life so I knew about the mysterious days that she went missing which she never spoke of. Her answer to questions about that time was always that she couldn't remember what happened. So learning that the premise of The Christie Affair was a fictional take on what happened during those missing days, I was very intrigued. With that being said, I haven't extensively looked into Agatha's history so as for what is really based on truth in this book, I can't say. I read it as though liberties were taken with the majority of the story.
The book is narrated from the POV of Agatha's husband's (Archie) mistress, Nan O'Dea. Nan is determined to steal Archie from Agatha even after being confronted by Agatha herself. The night that Archie finally tells Agatha that he is leaving her for Nan, Agatha packs a suitcase, grabs her typewriter, and disappears in her car. However, the car is later found on the side of the road and Agatha is nowhere in sight. The reader goes back and forth between this current time where the whole country is searching for Agatha and Nan is laying low at a luxury hotel and Nan's past where she fell in love with an Irish boy who was sent to fight in the War. After he returned, Nan got pregnant, but her love falls deathly ill before they could be married. The boy's parents send Nan off to a convent for unwed mothers where she is starved, forced to do backbreaking labor, and witnesses the physical and sexual abuse of other girls. After giving birth to her baby, the little girl is quickly given to a family without Nan's knowledge. Nan makes it her mission to find her child again.
There are a lot of moving parts and people in The Christie Affair and surprisingly not much of it has to do with Agatha Christie herself. While it uses her story as a basis, this is really a book about fictional character Nan O'Dea. In the beginning I wasn't sure how I would feel about this or her character, but Nina de Gramont did a great job at building Nan's character and getting you to feel sympathetic to a her despite doing some rather unfavorable things. Her story is actually the strongest in my opinion. Agatha is in the story and she plays a role, but don't go into it feeling like she is going to be a focal point. One thing that I think The Christie Affair could have benefited from was multiple POV narrators. Nan tells the whole story including other character's activities and thoughts at times when she wasn't there. Nan explains in the book how that was possible, but I think actually getting to hear the character's thoughts from their own POV would have allowed de Gramont the ability to dive deeper into each other psyches.
The book is narrated from the POV of Agatha's husband's (Archie) mistress, Nan O'Dea. Nan is determined to steal Archie from Agatha even after being confronted by Agatha herself. The night that Archie finally tells Agatha that he is leaving her for Nan, Agatha packs a suitcase, grabs her typewriter, and disappears in her car. However, the car is later found on the side of the road and Agatha is nowhere in sight. The reader goes back and forth between this current time where the whole country is searching for Agatha and Nan is laying low at a luxury hotel and Nan's past where she fell in love with an Irish boy who was sent to fight in the War. After he returned, Nan got pregnant, but her love falls deathly ill before they could be married. The boy's parents send Nan off to a convent for unwed mothers where she is starved, forced to do backbreaking labor, and witnesses the physical and sexual abuse of other girls. After giving birth to her baby, the little girl is quickly given to a family without Nan's knowledge. Nan makes it her mission to find her child again.
There are a lot of moving parts and people in The Christie Affair and surprisingly not much of it has to do with Agatha Christie herself. While it uses her story as a basis, this is really a book about fictional character Nan O'Dea. In the beginning I wasn't sure how I would feel about this or her character, but Nina de Gramont did a great job at building Nan's character and getting you to feel sympathetic to a her despite doing some rather unfavorable things. Her story is actually the strongest in my opinion. Agatha is in the story and she plays a role, but don't go into it feeling like she is going to be a focal point. One thing that I think The Christie Affair could have benefited from was multiple POV narrators. Nan tells the whole story including other character's activities and thoughts at times when she wasn't there. Nan explains in the book how that was possible, but I think actually getting to hear the character's thoughts from their own POV would have allowed de Gramont the ability to dive deeper into each other psyches.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape, Pregnancy, Kidnapping, Infidelity, Child death, and Sexual assault
delphic's review against another edition
2.5
This book had been an anticipated release so i had high hopes, unfortunately it did not deliver. The POV character was the mistress of Agatha Christie's husband, a real person, however she was essentially a fictional character in this story. Her name had been changed as had her backstory, adding an unnecessarily tragic backstory that was, however, crucial to the plot as it had been written. The book follows the 10 days Agatha Christie spent missing, a time she never spoke of. I knew the events would be fictional as no one knew the story, I was not expecting the story to centre so closely around so many other fictional events and characters making me wonder why this had been centred around Christie in the first place. Had this been an entirely fictional Historical Fiction book i would not have minded it as much.
The only real issue i had that isn't connected to the problems caused by using real people was the faux omniscient and thus unreliable narrator of the POV character. It was interesting if annoying, would have preferred a simple POV change rather than acting like the POV character somehow knew all of this was happening and what everyone was thinking. I also felt that this book never truly explored the various trauma's held within to the extent it shoudl, merely using them as set dressing, character motivations and pieces. in the mystery.
Overall, not a story i would recommend.
The only real issue i had that isn't connected to the problems caused by using real people was the faux omniscient and thus unreliable narrator of the POV character. It was interesting if annoying, would have preferred a simple POV change rather than acting like the POV character somehow knew all of this was happening and what everyone was thinking. I also felt that this book never truly explored the various trauma's held within to the extent it shoudl, merely using them as set dressing, character motivations and pieces. in the mystery.
Overall, not a story i would recommend.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Rape, Child death, and Pregnancy
Minor: War, Suicidal thoughts, and Murder
stephpercival's review
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
I came to The Christie Affair in the throes of a book hangover. It wasn’t a fortuitous start—I was critical of the unreliable narrator and had a difficult time mustering interest for the affair or disappearance of Agatha Christie. But de Gramont won me over in the end with Nan’s backstory and the slow but masterful convergence of Nan’s past with her present. It helped that, in the end, de Gramont was playful and intentional with her use of an unreliable narrator. While I wouldn’t give this book a 4 ⭐️ rating, it does deserve more than 3, falling somewhere between a 3.5-3.75 for me. If you enjoy mystery, history, romance, & happy endings, The Christie Affair is for you.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Pregnancy, Rape, and Grief
shelfofunread's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
The Christie Affair has a fantastic premise: what if there had been a real-life mystery behind the period during 1926 when best-selling novelist Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days? Even better, what if that mystery involved both Christie and her husband Archie's mistress, here re-named Nan O'Dea?
Sadly, for me, the execution didn't deliver on the concept. And that reimagining of Archie's real-life second wife, Nancy Neele, into Nan O'Dea is one of the primary reasons for that.
Nan's personal story is a tragic one involving an Irish lover, an unexpected pregnancy, and a brutal forced incarceration. But it only becomes entwined with Agatha's life towards the end of the novel and has little relevance to her disappearance. Indeed, the 'twist' at the end that links the two women was, to me, both somewhat disrespectful to the real Agatha, Archie, and Nancy and also rather far-fetched and bizarre.
Nan's tale is, in and of itself, a very compelling one - and it is well told by the author, with an evocative sense of both character and place coming across on the page - but I just couldn't understand why the Christie connection had been made.
I understand that this is fiction but the title, blurb, and marketing of The Christie Affair suggested that the book "reimagines the unexplained eleven-day disappearance of Agatha Christie in 1926 that captivated the world". Yet instead of Nan's story revealing "the truth of [Agatha's] disappearance", it wholly alters several aspects of both Christie and Nancy Neele's lives, replacing the real women with compellingly-written but barely recognisable figures and 'reimagining' their biographies by inventing fictitious romances (for Christie) and traumatic secrets (for Nancy/Nan).
If The Christie Affair hadn't promised to be a novel about Agatha Christie, I suspect I'd have enjoyed it a lot more. It is clear that the author can write a compelling historical novel and create interesting, believable, and empathetic characters. Sadly, the Christie link ended up feeling like little more than a convenient and underutilised hook that detracted from an otherwise interesting - but very different - novel.
Sadly, for me, the execution didn't deliver on the concept. And that reimagining of Archie's real-life second wife, Nancy Neele, into Nan O'Dea is one of the primary reasons for that.
Nan's personal story is a tragic one involving an Irish lover, an unexpected pregnancy, and a brutal forced incarceration. But it only becomes entwined with Agatha's life towards the end of the novel and has little relevance to her disappearance. Indeed, the 'twist' at the end that links the two women was, to me, both somewhat disrespectful to the real Agatha, Archie, and Nancy and also rather far-fetched and bizarre.
Nan's tale is, in and of itself, a very compelling one - and it is well told by the author, with an evocative sense of both character and place coming across on the page - but I just couldn't understand why the Christie connection had been made.
I understand that this is fiction but the title, blurb, and marketing of The Christie Affair suggested that the book "reimagines the unexplained eleven-day disappearance of Agatha Christie in 1926 that captivated the world". Yet instead of Nan's story revealing "the truth of [Agatha's] disappearance", it wholly alters several aspects of both Christie and Nancy Neele's lives, replacing the real women with compellingly-written but barely recognisable figures and 'reimagining' their biographies by inventing fictitious romances (for Christie) and traumatic secrets (for Nancy/Nan).
If The Christie Affair hadn't promised to be a novel about Agatha Christie, I suspect I'd have enjoyed it a lot more. It is clear that the author can write a compelling historical novel and create interesting, believable, and empathetic characters. Sadly, the Christie link ended up feeling like little more than a convenient and underutilised hook that detracted from an otherwise interesting - but very different - novel.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Confinement, Infidelity, Pregnancy, and Forced institutionalization
Minor: Suicide, War, Sexual content, Rape, Sexual assault, Religious bigotry, and Infertility
catherine_t's review
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
In 1926, Nan O'Dea became Archie Christie's mistress, fulfilling a plot she'd begun years earlier, in Ireland, when she was just a teenager. Moving back and forth in time, Nan recounts the events that led her to this moment, and the disappearance of Agatha Christie for eleven days.
My mother really enjoyed this book. I, on the other hand, did not. Yes, I am well aware that this book is fiction. It doesn't purport to solve the mystery of Christie's real-life disappearance (something which Christie herself never discussed, not even in her <i>Autobiography</i>). But the way it characterizes both Christies just struck me as false, hollow. Starting out, I couldn't understand why certain real-life details were changed (the Christies' daughter being named Teddy, for instance, not Rosalind, and Agatha using a typewriter when she was known to write longhand and have a secretary type the manuscript). In fact, it's these little niggling oddities that kept pulling me out of the story. Perhaps if I weren't such a devotee of Christie (I've read two biographies, most of her novels, and am eagerly awaiting the release of Lucy Worsley's biography of Christie later this year), these things wouldn't have bothered me, but they did.
Maybe this book isn't for those of us who know Christie and her work. As I said, my mother really enjoyed the book, and she's read one biography and a handful of the novels (I think). If you can consider this more of an alternate-universe version of Christie, perhaps you'll enjoy it more than I did.
My mother really enjoyed this book. I, on the other hand, did not. Yes, I am well aware that this book is fiction. It doesn't purport to solve the mystery of Christie's real-life disappearance (something which Christie herself never discussed, not even in her <i>Autobiography</i>). But the way it characterizes both Christies just struck me as false, hollow. Starting out, I couldn't understand why certain real-life details were changed (the Christies' daughter being named Teddy, for instance, not Rosalind, and Agatha using a typewriter when she was known to write longhand and have a secretary type the manuscript). In fact, it's these little niggling oddities that kept pulling me out of the story. Perhaps if I weren't such a devotee of Christie (I've read two biographies, most of her novels, and am eagerly awaiting the release of Lucy Worsley's biography of Christie later this year), these things wouldn't have bothered me, but they did.
Maybe this book isn't for those of us who know Christie and her work. As I said, my mother really enjoyed the book, and she's read one biography and a handful of the novels (I think). If you can consider this more of an alternate-universe version of Christie, perhaps you'll enjoy it more than I did.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, and War
Minor: Child death, Death of parent, and Suicide
kaylamoran's review
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This was a 5 star prediction for me, and it fell so flat. It never managed to get me to care about the characters, despite all of its efforts. It's not bad per se but I'm extremely disappointed.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Miscarriage, War, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Abandonment, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Confinement, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, and Sexual assault