This book's storyline intrigues me, and I like the believably crafted characters. The writing style captures the 1920s ethos we meet historical characters alongside fictional ones. The story is complex and has elements of mystery but focuses on Nan's life more than I expected. Her connection with Agatha puts her in the role of an unreliable protagonist. Her determination to achieve the life she wants makes her hard to like. This is more literary fiction than detective fiction but an engaging read.

I received a copy of this book from Pan Macmillan via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I was really intrigued by this book but I don't think it landed quite like how I wanted it to. I really enjoyed the opening third of this book however as it went on I felt like I just lost interest. I wasn't the biggest fan of the plot twists however I did really enjoy the setting.
I think this just wasn't the book for me.

TW: for pregnancy and baby loss, still birth, rape.

This for me was unfortunately lacking.
The story claims to be the story behind Agatha Christie's disappearance from her husbands' mistress' POV. I think my biggest problem with this was the believability. I enjoyed the first half and switching between Nan's past and present timeline was so interesting to try and learn how she got to where she was.

I really wish there'd been a trigger warning for Nan's past. She is at a convent where girls babies are taken from them and there is a still birth which as a new mum almost made me put the book down to be honest. I understand the need to show how hard her life has been and how much she's overcome but it was incredibly hard to read. I think from here I couldn't truly follow her intentions. It just seemed so wildly out there the connection from her first love, to Mr. Christie back to her first love, it was too much.

I will say I LOVED the spa storyline. It was so Poirot I really felt like I was in one of Agatha Christie's novels and it felt incredible. I think the author knows her stuff when it comes to Christie and it showed in parts, but for me personally I think too many liberties were taken and I wanted this to feel almost like a non-fiction, a retelling maybe and it was so far from that.

The writing style here was so smooth that I flew through this book and even when struggling I didn't want to put it down. I would pick up more from the author in future based on that alone.

I was sent a copy of The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont to read and review by NetGalley. I thought that this novel was a bit of a masterpiece! It is written first person by protagonist Nan O’Dea and even in the sections where she couldn’t possibly have known what was happening, even retrospectively, I found myself believing her words implicitly. This is a very clever piece of fiction, even though before you start reading the first page you know that no-one knows what actually happened during Agatha Christie’s missing days, the way that this story is told is so credible that you end up hoping that something very like this is true. I loved Nan’s voice, especially in the little asides that she made from time to time, it was an absolute joy to read!

A quite ingenious piece of writing about eleven missing days in the life of Agatha Christie. It involves romance, love, revenge and murder, along with an unlikely partner. A novel that twists fact and fiction with an ending that the great lady would be proud of.
This an author with a great imagination and a brilliant writing style that’s highly addictive.
I thought this book was incredibly entertaining and one I highly recommend.

What a wonderful book to dive into. It starts off being about Agatha Christie but slowly moved to the protagonist Nan. Her character arc and her background story makes compelling reading and highlights important issues around adoption and abuse in Ireland for pregnant women. It should really be turned into a TV series.

On December 3rd 1926 Agatha Christie quarrelled with her husband Archie. Later that evening she disappeared - she was missing for 11 days, sparking a sensational, nationwide (wo)manhunt.
This is a fictional account of what happened during those 11 days and why. It is narrated by Archie’s mistress, Nan, who gives her imagined version of the events.
It’s a beautifully written work - a pacy mystery but also a murder mystery (with a few plot holes!) and a romance with excellently drawn characters. I loved the twists too - I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. All views are my own.

What's not to love? A mystery novel about the mysterious missing days of real-life crime writer Agatha Christie - who 'disappeared' for 11 days following the discovery of her husband's affair. I LOVED this. Beautifully written from the point of view of Mr Christie's mistress, the fictional Nan O'Dea, the story imaginatively fills the gaps of those missing days in Agatha's life, and provides a compelling potential solution to the mystery which real-life Agatha herself never felt the need to fully explain. Fact and fiction blend seamlessly and the twist near the end (the clues are all there!) gives the reader a new perspective on what maybe, perhaps, could have, might have happened.

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan for giving me a digital copy of this book for my review.

I adore the world of Agatha Christie and have always read her books, so when this popped up I could not resist the chance to explore what happened to her on her infamous disappearance for 11 days.

The tone of the book is similar to that of Christie's work, slow to med paced and the writing is very descriptive. Nan is a likable girl, even if she does have her sights set on Agatha's husband. The tale weaves us through the current day and then shows us glimpses of Nan's past. These allow us to understand Nan and get to see how she has ended up where she is today.

I think anyone could pick this book up with partial knowledge of Agatha Christie and really enjoy it, but if you happen to like her work this will really tick that box.

As someone who has recently started re-reading Agatha Christie and been reminded why I always enjoyed her books, I was intrigued by the concept of this book, a fictional account of Agatha Christie’s mysterious 11 day disappearance in 1926.

It is an enjoyable book if perhaps not entirely what I expected. The story is told through the eyes of Nan O’Dea, the mistress of Christie’s husband and switches between the time of the disappearance and Nan’s difficult past. Nan’s story was fascinating if heartbreaking at times and it is her story that is really at the heart of the book as we begin to understand how she and Agatha Christie are connected and why she set her sights on Agatha’s husband. Against the odds you find yourself rooting for her despite the fact that she contributed to the demise of Christie’s marriage.

For me Christie felt like a secondary character in the book but Nan’s story was engaging and well told, de Gramont’s ability to set the scene and transport the reader to the 1920s is unquestionable, as is her character development, and the murder mystery element felt reminiscent of a Christie novel. All in all it was an interesting and engaging read with a clever mix of intrigue and romance.

A masterfully plotted, beautifully written story with absorbing characters and a delightful sense of time and place, I loved every moment of this book.

I've always been fascinated by the disappearance of Agatha Christie for 11 days in 1926, so when I heard about this book - telling one possible version of what *might* have happened while she was gone - I knew I had to read it.

What I hadn't expected, however, was to become so invested and absorbed in the lives of the other characters in it, especially our narrator, Colonel Christie's mistress, Nan O'Dea.

Written from her point of view, but with the benefit of hindsight and plenty of extra information from the other characters, Nan swept me into her world, her mind and her heart and kept me there through the whole book. I found myself caring, desperately, about what was going to happen to her, and because of her.

Since it's a book about Christie, of course there's plenty of mystery too, besides Agatha's disappearance. But what I loved most was how all the separate threads woven loosely together at the start, were pulled tight as the story progressed, until you realised - almost too late - that every single thing that has happened since page one was for a reason, and has brought us, perfectly, to The End.

Based very loosely on the disappearance of Agatha Chritie in 1926, The Christie Affair is narrated by the various characters the author has put into this story. The central character is Nan O'Dea, rather than Agatha Christie and it is the tragedy and resolve that drive the story.

It reads more like an Agatha Christie story than a story about Agatha Christie.

I was given a copy of The Christie Affair by NetGalley and the publishers in return for an unbiased review.

I really enjoyed reading this - not just because I’m an Agatha Christie fan - it’s based on those mysterious days when Agatha went missing, turning up at a hotel spa claiming amnesia. The storyline is as exciting as a Christie novel, and also gives a wonderful insight to the awful things that happened to young women at the time as well.

Overall, an excellent read.

My thanks to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review
.

DNF at 34%.

This sounded awesome, the story of what happened to Agatha Christie when she disappeared for eleven days, told by her husband's mistress.

Well I'm over a third of the way through and so far there's been precious little of Agatha. There's been her husband's scheming mistress Nan, there's been a retired police officer, there's been her husband wandering the streets of London blah, blah, blah but not Agatha.

Also, the writing is very odd. I'm sure some poor teenager will be forced to opine on why the book is written from Nan's point of view, even when she's describing her lover's feelings - as if she's the omnipotent narrator instead of one of the characters, but for the reader its very off-putting. I have to keep rereading to see who is taking and who they are talking about.

I wasn't enthralled but I kept plodding at it hoping it would get better - because I would love to read a story about where Agatha Christie was during those days (and why), but sadly that doesn't seem to be this book, which is more concerned with tawdry Nan.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Although I found this to be a fascinating read, this book did surprise me, in that it was written by the mistress of Archie Christie, Nan O’Dea. There were flashbacks to Nan’s earlier life and some of it was very harrowing and explains her actions, to some extent. There are a number of engaging secondary characters, that add interest to the story. There are also a number of surprises and connections. I did like that the reader was told what happened to the characters in the future. I must add that Archie Christie didn’t come out well but rather as a self centred person. I received a copy and have voluntarily reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I enjoyed this book - a fictionalised account of what happened when Agatha Christie went missing in 1926. The narrator, Nan O'Dea, is integral to the plot. She is a key character, partly due to the narration, but also partly as, close to the start, Agatha's husband, Archie, leaves her to be with his lover: Nan. At times, her narration seems a little implausible in that she wouldn't know the ins and outs of everything she claims to know - but then, this is fiction, and we have to suspend our disbelief here.

Throughout de Gramont's book, readers are privy to Christie's disappearance - to Harrogate - and how she has interactions with Nan's old lover from Ireland, as well as the detective pursuing her. There are some clever twists here - it's a prime example of meta, in that a crime story takes place within a story. It is, perhaps, a little too long - but I was left wondering what was based on truth, and what wasn't. I haven't read AC's autobiography, or any of the biographies about her - if I had, perhaps I would know a little more about the fact and fiction here.

This is an original and engaging read - if you like a good mystery, I don't think you'll be disappointted.

The Christie Affair by Nina De Gramont-Book Review
📖A Disappearance,A Love Story and Agatha Christie!!📖

The Christie Affair is a standalone novel written by Nina De Gramont.The story is based on the disappearance of crime novelist Agatha Christie and what happened during the days of her disappearance.The book also tells the story of Agatha’s marital nemesis Nan O Dea.

My favourite character has to Nan o Dea,I really connected with her struggles through life and the character had so many layers which were explored in the book,using Nan’s backstory.
The story kept me gripped the whole way through,as the book took on several twists and turns along the way.

My favourite part of the book was murder mystery element within the book,which I wasn’t expecting,and I thought it was a great twist

All the book was written superbly,and kept my interest throughout.

I cannot find one fault with this book.The characters were well rounded ,the story was engaging and kept my interest and the twist and turns in the plot were brilliant.

I recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of Agatha Christie and crime fiction in general.A fantastic page Turner which will keep you guessing till the end
Bookworm rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

📚 r e v i e w 📚
Whether you’re a fan of Agatha Christie or not, you can’t deny that she is an icon.
Perhaps more than any of the mysteries she wrote, the one thing that most intregues me about Agatha Christie is her disappearance.
Personally, I think Doctor Who’s explanation involving alien wasps is very compelling.
Anyway, for those that don’t know, in the 1920s, Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days. There was a nationwide search and eventually she was discovered in a hotel in Harrogate staying under the name of her husband’s mistress and with seemingly no recollection of who she was or how she got there. Doctors and the police concluded that she had a mental breakdown leading to disassociated state.
The thing is Agatha Christie, never spoke about the incident ever again. Was it a publicity stunt to promote her new book? Did she Gone Girl herself before Gone Girl was a thing? Or was the stress of her mother’s death and husband’s infidelity too much for her? We’ll never know, but Nina de Gramont has put forward her own theory in her new book, the Christie Affair.
Told through the eyes of a fictional woman based on Archie Christie’s mistress, we see a new mystery surrounding Agatha Christie and how it ties into her own experiences and secrets.

Beautifully written and wonderfully immersive, Nina de Gramont really captures the essence of the time period and has created something that Christie herself could be proud of. With believable and fully fleshed out characterisations, this is a charming historical novel, but if you’re looking for a book about the Queen of Crime and her disappearance you might be a bit disappointed. My only real criticism is that Christie herself was more of a secondary character in a book about her disappearance.

Though her disappearance is the catalyst of the story and features heavily, the book is actually about the fictional Nan and her life before becoming Archie’s mistress.
That aside this is a solid story and i had a great time reading it!

Thank you @netgalley for the advanced copy. This is out 1st February.


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This is an interesting take on the disappearance of Agatha Christie in 1926. There have been many ideas floated as to what actually happened to her, and this fictionalised account is worthy of a Christie novel itself.
I enjoyed the story very much with all the twists and turns and red herrings of an original Christie, my only reservation , as I have with other fictionalised accounts of real life events in both film and novels, is that in time fact and fiction blurs into a new 'truth'.

This was the book that kept me sane while I was having some health issues that sent me to an Emergency Room.
As I had to wait I started reading it was amazing as it helped to keep my mind from the issues and the bleak environment.
It's a riveting and well researched story, the characters are fleshed out and realistic, the historical background vivid.
There's secrets, murders, betrayal: I read it as fast as I could and loved it.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine