As a lifelong Agatha Christie fan, I was so excited to read anything that includes her. I found this book to be very interesting - I had no idea that Christie's husband Archie was in an affair. The story is captivating, and the plot twists were somewhat predictable, but still satisfying.

Trigger warnings: war, suicide, rape, infants taken away from mothers

"A long time ago, in another country, I nearly killed a woman."

Nina de Gramont's novel begins with this sentence that sucks the reader in and takes off running. Although the sentence is true, the story unfolding is not at all what the reader would expect.

Nan O'Dea is Archie Christie's mistress and is biding her time until Archie divorces Agatha. Mrs. Christie is not a household name yet but has a few mystery novels published. When she disappears after Archie tells her that he's leaving her, the entire country is captivated by the story of her disappearance.

Was the disappearance an elaborate publicity stunt? Christie's next novel would be published the following January. She becomes a household name and is still known as Agatha Christie despite her divorce from Mr. Christie.

The story that unfolds is told by Nan and is mostly her story, but she shares what she's gleaned from Agatha and Archie. The narrative switches back and forth between Nan's childhood in pre-WWI Ireland and the time her life intertwined with Archie and Agatha.

Nan O'Dea is a fictional character but is based on a real woman. Through her narrative, the reader finds a desperate woman who will do anything to get what she wants -- which surprisingly isn't Archie Christie.

The reimagining of what happened during Agatha Christie's disappearance -- and why -- is a plot worthy of one of Christie's novels. I enjoyed this version of the story more than The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict.

Highly recommended for fans of women's historical fiction and Agatha Christie.

A 5-star premise with a 3-star plot

3.5 stars

“Authors created problems, they didn’t solve them.”

The Christie Affair is a mystery centered around the sensational and scandalous chain of events that led to Agatha Christie’s disappearance for 11 days in 1926. Told through the eyes of Agatha Christies’ husband’s mistress, a story of secrets, revenge, and lust emerges, resulting in a startling murder.

The day after Agatha's husband Archie Christie tells her he is divorcing Agatha and leaving her for his mistress, Agatha Christie disappeared without a trace for 11 days. Her car was found abandoned by the side of the road with her possessions left inside. Thought to be dead, a nationwide search was launched to find the missing mystery writer. What happened to AC during this time is imagined by Nan O’Dea, Archie’s mistress, and the woman who caused it all.

Told from Nan’s point of view, I didn’t enjoy the narrative style. Relying on her imagination, Nan tells the reader what happened to AC. She rationalizes by speaking to the reader and explaining why this is ok. She paints an almost cartoonish picture of Agatha Christie, who comes across as an eccentric, borderline obsessive, and hysterical woman with no regard for her child or others in her life.

I love the idea of this book. What happened to AC and why she left is a compelling storyline. However, this book focuses on Nan and her rationale for stealing Archie away from Agatha. Nan’s story is both interesting and horrifying; however, the two storylines don’t meld. The two parts are competing against one another.

There are a lot of unanswered questions and plot holes. Pieces come together in the end and paint a picture of how the events connect in an AC-style mystery. However, to get there, one has to overlook many coincidences and unexplained events. The Christie Affair is an ambitious undertaking with potential, but it left me wanting more.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I have yet to actually read any Agatha Christie books but the premise of this caught my attention. I read some reviews that were bothered by Nan’s version of the story when she wasn’t even there. But I actually enjoyed the unreliable narration. A few plot holes and one character I didn’t care for. But overall an entertaining read!

While this book is interesting and well written, it's just not for me.
I read and read and just didn't enjoy it at all. I do not like leaving poor reviews and won't if at all possible. I wanted to love this one. I honestly did. But that being said, I found it to be a tad boring. I was never into the Agatha Christie books or anything Agatha. That is obviously just me from the reviews I have read.

I'm truly sorry.
Thank you #NetGalley for this ARC. This is truly how I feel.
3/5 stars and that is because I did finish but still didn't enjoy it at all. I recommend you read it for yourself. You may love it,

This was an interesting premise. I have always loved the disappearance of Agatha and wondered what really happened. I thought that this was a very interesting idea of what happened, but I do wish it would have been Agatha's story and not her husband's mistress telling it. The overall story had some great mystery to it, which made it a compelling read.

I absolutely loved this book - the author creates a whole story about what may have happened during the 11 day disappearance of Agatha Christie in 1926, after her husband told her he had fallen in love with a younger woman.

Interestingly, the point of view is from her husband's mistress. She describes her life as a child, spending summers in Ireland and falling in love with a boy there. I wondered at first, how this had anything to do with the plot of the book, but later felt that Nan O'Day's life was more interesting and compelling than Agatha Christie's disappearance.
I won't go into any spoilers, but the way Nina de Gramont ties events in Miss O'Day's past with Mrs. Christie's present is very enjoyable, similar to an Agatha Christie murder mystery novel.
It is a heartbreaking visit to the past and a place in the present where things can be imagined into being as one wishes them to be. Highly recommended!

Agatha Christie as a fictional character is having a moment, as are books that speculate on what happened during the author's 1926 disappearance, and The Christie Affair stands out. This story fictionalizes the woman Christie's husband was having an affair with as Nan O'Dea, and in a remarkable feat makes Nan the story's most interesting and complex character. Nan's reasons and her backstory are heartbreaking and fascinating, and readers might be surprised at how much they sympathize with "the other woman" by the end of this story.

For starters, I love anything to do with Agatha Christie and this premise was so intriguing.
The story was very compelling. The idea to have the POV from the mistress was a unique twist on narrating the story. I think it worked for the most part but could get a little confusing until I got used to the writing style.
I went into this thinking it was going to be mostly about Agatha but it’s not really. As the reader, we learn more about Nan and what lead her to be entangled into Agatha’s life.
I would definitely recommend this book to any Christie fan. I think it will also appeal to readers who enjoy mystery and historical fiction.

Thank you to St Martin’s Press for this earc copy of the Christie Affair!

I’m feeling a little indifferent about this book. There were a lot of plot lines and different situations the characters were put into that there’s a lot to unpack.

First let’s start with the positives. I loved the relationship between Nan and Finbarr. Their relationship was heartbreakingly beautiful, I found myself being heartbroken right along with them. The love and loss they endured was a lot to handle on the couple. Even more so with Nan, her child and the convent. I found myself just as angry as she was feeling. As I’m writing I’m realizing how much I enjoyed the story line with Nan. I feel like the parts involving Agatha are less important to the story and the focus should be spent on Nan.

Now the parts that didn’t work. The two or three sentences about how Alby died will haunt me. I can’t take it that was the worst part. I really hate reading about animal death so I wish that wasn’t included. Also, as I mentioned before, there’s a lot going on almost too many storylines. The main reveal of Nan’s motives was great, but I felt like the romance that Agatha had came out of nowhere and wasn’t necessary.

Overall, I think this is a solid historical fiction that fans of the genre and fans of history will enjoy!

Agatha Christie once disappeared for 11 days. She never gave a satisfactory explanation for it. The facts are few. I’m sure that if she ever would have disclosed the details, they would have come wrapped in a twisty plot with plenty of mystery, detectives and, of course, murders. Well, Nina de Gramont stepped up to give us just such a tale.

The historical facts are few. In December 1926, Agatha’s husband, Archie, announced he would divorce her and promptly left to spend the weekend with his mistress. Then Agatha decided to abandon their home and child. The only evidence left from her departure was her car containing her clothes, but not her typewriter, teetering on the edge of a quarry. Clearly, Agatha was not so despondent to consider abandoning her writing career. Suspecting suicide or foul play, the authorities launched a nationwide search. Eventually, Agatha was found at a spa in the rural village of Harrowgate. The story ends with Archie marrying his mistress, becoming their daughter’s custodial parent, and with Agatha continuing her successful writing career. With these meager facts as her framework, de Gramont crafted a devilishly clever Christie-esque story narrated, not by Agatha, but by Archie’s mistress, Nan O’Dea. While Archie’s real mistress was also named Nancy, she bears no resemblance to this Nan. The fictional Nan is lively, determined, conniving and, at her core, quite ruthless. Clearly, she is an unreliable narrator. A supremely unreliable narrator is not necessarily a serious flaw in today’s version of literary fiction. However, Nan’s uncanny ability to describe in detail events that she could never have witnessed can be unsettling.

Nan’s backstory is the novel’s primary plot driver. Most of the action that occurs during Agatha’s hiatus in Harrowgate stems from these events. These include idyllic summers in Ireland where she becomes romantically involved with a young neighbor called Finbarr; and the Great War removing Finbarr from the scene, but not before Nan becomes pregnant. Finbarr returns a damaged man and promptly gets the deadly Spanish flu. More of Nan’s turbulent history cannot be revealed without risking spoilers. Suffice it to say, it is indeed woeful.

Most of the action takes place at the Bellefort Hotel & Spa, a vacation resort in Harrowgate, also the scene of two murders. The characters converge here for a classical who-done-it reveal rivaling Christie’s best. De Gramont even folds in a romance for the spurned Agatha in the form of retired detective Clinton, a man tasked with finding her.

The narrative is cleverly structured notwithstanding occasional lapses into absurdity. It has multiple plot twists, well controlled pacing and a satisfying denouement. De Gramont also captures the times well including physical and psychological war injuries, the flu pandemic, and class issues extant in GB and Ireland. THE CHRISTIE AFFAIR should be a satisfying historical thriller for anyone, especially Christie fans.

When I was around twelve or thirteen, a neighbor who was moving, left me a gift of her paperback Agatha Christie books. The first one I read was And Then There Were None and for whatever reason, it is still my favorite. I realized when I read the description for A Christie Affair, that I knew nothing about her personal life and was excited to read this fictional look into her life.
Agatha's husband was a louse! Archie planned to leave her for his mistress, and that news was unexpected. She may have been a great crime writer, but he either was an exceptionally good liar, or she was just paying close enough attention to what was going on right under her nose. She did not take the news well.
The author tells her story from the perspective of the other woman, and we get a version of what could only be described as a sorry situation. The biggest mystery was where Agatha went for eleven days shortly after Archie delivered his news. I might have saved one of her great plotlines, making sure that Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple were nowhere near the scene of the crime, and given Archie a surprise he would never forget. But that is just me and I digress. It was interesting to see what happened through Nan’s (the lover) eyes and I did enjoy this book. However, I would have loved the fictionalized version to have been told through Agatha's eyes. Either way, no one has found a secret diary detailing the actual truth so we may never know. An original and quite an entertaining look at an unsolved mystery.

This book follows the true story of the 11 days in which Agatha Christie disappeared and hypothesizes what may have actually happened during that time. This book was so interesting! I thoroughly enjoyed it! I would love to read more by this author!

Based on a true event, this story tells one theory of the disappearance of Agatha Christie. Agatha Christie actually disappeared for eleven days and she was found at a spa, just as events in this story relate. For fans of a mystery, historical fiction, or Agatha Christie buffs, this story is well written and poses a theory of what really happened during those eleven days.

This book follows the story of Agatha Christie's disappearance for several days, and discusses what could have happened; all from the point of view of Agatha's husband's mistress Nan.
The story goes from the past, discussing some wrongs done to Nan, and then brings us to the "present," which is the time period during the disappearance. We get to meet Nan's one true love, Finnbar, and we also meet numerous other characters in Nan's life. We then learn what the most important thing in Nan's life is, her "lost" daughter, Genevieve.
Nan's youth was during the time of the war, and at that time there were many young ladies who became unwed mothers when their men were sent off to war. As a result of this, the churches decided to create many homes for unwed mothers to stay until they gave birth, to hide the disgrace they caused. These young women were not treated very well, and their children were usually taken to be put in an orphanage or given up for adoption; sometimes against their will. Nan is someone who had to endure this, and because of that fact her whole adult life revolved around her lost child.
I really enjoyed this telling of the story of Agatha's disappearance, and I would recommend the book to anyone who is looking for a great book on that topic.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's St. Martin's Press for this arc, I wish I had loved it more. It was disappointing that we didn't get more from Agatha's POV because to me, Nan's POV was not interesting at all. The writing was good, but the story never took off for me. But it was a win, because it made me realize that I don't connect with historical fiction if I like the real person it is about.

Nina de Gramont created the perfect blend of a mystery novel and historical fiction, presenting her take on the disappearance of Agatha Christie that had England aghast. I loved this novel and highly recommend it to those enjoying a dash of romance and intrigue with their mysteries.

I wanted to like this book. I like historical fiction, but this story just didn’t resonate with me. The story is told in first person by a woman, Nan O’Dea who is a friend to Agatha Christie while also sleeping with her husband. After hearing her husband is leaving her, Agatha flees and spends 11 days trying to find herself. I found the book confusing from the point of view to the changes in characters and Nan’s flashbacks. I also did not like the way they justified Nan’s behavior. While having her baby taken away from her was a tragedy; murdering people involved, hurting people (Finnegan) and stealing someone’s husband is not right either.

This book is less about Agatha Christie and more about Nan O’Dea, Agatha’s husband’s paramour. I imagine things were handled in a different way in the mid-1920s. I know I would not have reacted as Agatha did when finding out her husband was leaving her for another woman. In fact, I DIDN’T respond that way when my husband did the same thing! The author has done an excellent job of weaving a fictional tale surrounding Agatha Christie’s mysterious disappearance.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

The premise of this was so intriguing and I was really excited to dive in - plus that cover!!! It is gorgeous!

Unfortunately I never became fully invested. This felt very slow and not very engaging. I had a hard time getting into the story and kept noticing I had read a few pages and my mind wandered so I didn't know what I just read and had to go back and repeat the process.

This wasn't a favorite for me.