This is an exhausting book. I'm quitting at 80%.

This isn't about Agatha Christie, it's about a fictionalized version of Christie's husband's mistress Nan. It traces her life before wwi and the awful fates of unwed mothers, and then traces what Nan was up to before and during the disappearance, and some after. Nan isn't particularly likeable but I don't think she's supposed to be.

I got the audiobook and the narrator was good! Had good voices.

The perspective was confusing- it's from Nan's pov but would go to scenes she wasn't in and was sometimes explicitly her imagining these things happening, and it could float from a characters pov talking about her (There she is) to her internal pov (he sees me) with no reason. So hard to follow.

This book is mostly just so long. I can see a decent story here but this is ten hours and for what. I got to what I'm presuming is the "big twist" and I think it was supposed to shock me but really, I cannot care enough about this character to make this have any emotional weight.

Overall, just can't recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the review copy provided in exchange for an honest review

I found this book to be slow and boring. The plot was all over the places. I was thrown off by Nan knowing all of the other characters motivations and feelings. There was a lot of fluff written but nothing much moving the plot along.

I enjoyed this quite a lot, though there were a few moments that were a bit difficult to follow given the timeline jumps. Given that the story in not told in a totally linear fashion, it does make the reading of it a little more challenging. The story itself was at once intriguing and heartbreaking.

Agatha Christie has disappeared. Her husband, Archie, is suspected of being involved in her disappearance. Nan O'Dea, the woman conducting an affair with Archie is hiding secrets. The unraveling begins, and the truth is more salacious and twisted than an Agatha Christie book.

Very entertaining listen. Nicely narrated.

Thanks!

I was very intrigued by the concept of this book, however the description was very vague and did not prepare me for what I was about to read. There were many chapters/scenes that were difficult to listen to as they were about sexual abuse.

Very engaging. Left with questions to think about, but torn on what I truly wanted for the characters. Very well written and enjoyable.

3.5/5 Stars

A reimagining of the eleven days world-renowned author Agatha Christie went missing... told by her husband's mistress.

I enjoyed this, but at times found it to be a bit slow. I felt that it took quite awhile to get into the actual story. I liked the dual timelines of Nan, the mistress in the past with her childhood sweetheart Finnbar, as well as her time living in a convent, and the present day when Agatha disappeared. I liked getting the backstory about how and why Nan ended up in the situation she did, and the motivations behind her actions. The biggest complaint I have is that I felt very unsatisfied with the ending. I was able to call the big reveal from a mile away. I listened to this on audio, and think that the narrator did a great job making these characters come alive.

A fictional story of the "disappearance" of Agatha Christie. While I really enjoyed the writing and the idea of an Agatha Christie mystery, it just didn't really do it for me. I wanted more of a mystery, I guess. I wish there was more about Agatha. Nan was a very unlikable character, in my opinion, and while I understand her story, it just needed more interesting elements. The audiobook was very well narrated, which made it enjoyable.


*Thank you @stmartinspress and @macmillanaudio for the audiobook and egalley in exchange for an honest review.*

An interesting read, I’m not too familiar with Agatha Christie but found this to be a really interesting and unusual take on that time in her life. I was hoping it would give more insight on what actually took place during her disappearance but this was still an enjoyable read nonetheless.

"A long time ago, in another country, I nearly killed a woman. It's a particular feeling, the urge to murder. It takes over your body so completely, it's like a divine force, grabbing hold of your will, your limbs, your psyche. There's a joy to it. In retrospect, it's frightening, but I daresay in the moment it feels sweet. The way justice feels sweet."
– Nan O’Dea

A combination of fact and fiction, “The Christie Affair” recounts Agatha Christie’s real-life disappearance in 1926, through the eyes of her husband Archie’s mistress, Nan O’Dea. Christie abandons her car in the middle of nowhere and disappears for 11 days. How was O'Dea so intricately tied to those secretive days? The greatest enigma wasn't the famous crime writer’s disappearance, it's what she discovered. A composite of love and revenge, agency and betrayal, murder and justice, Nina de Gramont’s novel is entertaining and beautifully written.

Synopsis

In 1925, Miss Nan O’Dea infiltrated the wealthy, rarefied world of author Agatha Christie and her husband, Archie. In every way, she became a part of their life – first, both Christies. Then, just Archie. Soon, Nan became Archie’s mistress, luring him away from his devoted wife, desperate to marry him. Nan’s plot didn’t begin the day she met Archie and Agatha.

It began decades before, in Ireland, when Nan was a young girl. She and the man she loved were a star-crossed couple who were destined to be together – until the Great War, a pandemic, and shameful secrets tore them apart. Then acts of unspeakable cruelty kept them separated.

Note

In real life, Agatha’s devastation over her husband’s demand for a divorce led her to flee her Berkshire home and disappear for 11 days; no one knows where she went and she took that secret to her grave.

A huge thank you to @NetGalley, @stmartinspress and @macmillan.audio for both the advanced review ebook and audiobook.

DNF at 50%
Trigger Warnings: Adultery, infant death, sexual abuse

Even after reading the synopsis for this book, it was not what I expected. I love reading Agatha Christie mysteries, I have been reading them for many years and I guess I thought that this book would be both more about Agatha but also more in line with a Christie mystery. It sadly was not.

This book follows Nan, the mistress who steals Agatha Christie's husband away from her thus leading to her disappearance. Much of the book is about Nan and her life leading up to the affair and the disappearance. However, even weirder is that it is told from Nan as an omnipotent narrator... so she 'knows' what happened as she was doing her thing, to Agatha, and the husband, and the police etc. I found the way that the story was told to be off-putting.

I made it to the 50% mark in the audiobook, so I gave it a real try, but the story was not enough to keep me into it, and I really didn't care about Nan at all either. I think that one of the biggest downfalls of this book is that 'it is about Agatha's disappearance' but really it isn't it is a story about a sad mistress and her life leading up to adultery and Agatha is collateral damage. I think that the author is alienating her audience from the beginning in this sense. I came for a story about Agatha and where she went and what she did during her time away, not a story about the woman that made her life difficult. As a fan of Agatha Christie, I had strong negative feelings for Nan from the beginning and as she tries to justify her decisions to allow a man to cheat it only made me dislike her even more.

This was one of my most anticipated books this year and I really wanted to love it, sadly that was just not the case. This story might make a miraculous turn at the very end, much like the Agatha Christie mysteries I know and love, but I didn't have it in me to make it as it was currently moving along.

Book 18 of 2022
🌟🌟.5/5
This was the first audio book in while. Im not going to lie I was drawn to this book for the beautiful cover.

I will admit now that I don't know much of Agatha Christie's past so I went into this book blind. There is ALOT of characters to keep track of right from the start. This book follows the story mainly of Nan O'Dea, Agatha's husbands mistress. It is all from her view.

From before Agathas disappearance right until the end. I found myself re-listening to a few chapters to follow along easier. The middle of the book captured me, I was finally invested in this story. The end is WILD and explains everything that happened along the way.

In the end this book wasn't really for me, but im glad I finished it and came around to enjoy it. If you enjoy historical fiction you may enjoy. The narrator did a great job on this story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillian Audio for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest
review.

I was hoping more of a Agatha Christie account of the episode but the story started off with the infidelity being the main focus which wasn’t so captivating. I could not finish listening to this book.

What a fun, twisty historical fiction - emphasis on fiction. Much luck an Agatha Christie novel if you were paying attention, the big twist at the end isn't such a surprise but that didn't take away from how enjoyable the journey to get to that last page is.

The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont is a historical fiction novel with elements of romance, murder mystery, and a journey. It is also an imagining of the notorious 11 days that Agatha Christie went missing in 1926. We are told the story mostly through the voice of Nan O'Dea, a loose representation of the mistress and second wife of Agatha Christie's former husband Archie. We get a lot of Nan's backstory, from her teen pregnancy and time at a convent, all the way up to her eventual marriage to Archie. The reader is bounced back and forth between present day and between different points in both Agatha's and Nan's backstories. The emphasis of the book is much more on Nan's story, rather than Agatha's, but it is a devastatingly interesting story, full of much suffering. The novel has great character development and some interesting fictional side characters, too. The narration of the audiobook was fantastic and I do recommend. Overall, a 3.5 star read for me.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for providing me with a free audiobook ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont is a book that aimed to help explain Agatha Christie’s famous and mysterious disappearance. Told by her husband’s mistress, this book was a bit interesting at first. Overall, it was really hard to get into this book because the narrator/mistress is really unlikable and hard to read. Not a favorite for me at all. I received an audio copy of this book from the publisher with no obligations. These opinions are entirely my own.

In December of 1926, Archie Christie tells his author wife Agatha that he’s leaving her for another woman. This leads to Agatha disappearing for 11 days, with her car found abandoned on the side of the road.
This fiction book tells the story of Archie’s affair from his mistress’ point of view. Nan is the fictional mistress, and Archie’s second wife. While jumping back and forth between Nan’s past and what lead her to Archie Christie, as well as briefly touching on what happened to Agatha, it was an interesting premise. Unfortunately for me it felt too unbelievable, and quite a few plot holes and unanswered questions. The reason for the affair and what drew them together seemed a bit far fetched, but was very interesting! The audiobook was well done, but I felt like it was two different books in one. It just seemed a bit out of reach, especially with how Nan would talk about Agatha like they’d be friends if Nan hadn’t stolen Archie from Agatha. Again, it was such a good premise, but just fell flat for me.

Where are my Agatha Christie lovers at?! How in the world did I not know that she disappeared for 11 days?! Talk about going down a rabbit hole?! I had no idea, which made this book all the more intriguing and enjoyable. It is full of a wide range of topics: love, pregnancy loss, abuse, lies, war, mystery, mental health, disappearing women, dreams and family.


What I loved most was that I had no idea Christie ever went missing, and that there isn’t a lot known about her disappearance (why she disappeared or where she even was during that time), so that made this story so enjoyable. This book read like a mystery which made me enjoy it more than I was expectin. I enjoyed that it also discusses the past of the mistress, and that as the story reads on and it shows how the two womens stories overlap.


There are a number of theories as to Christie’s disappearance: to boost novel sales / publicity stunt, to escape the embarrassment of her husband’s affair, nervous breakdown after the death of her mother, or amnesia after a car accident, to name a few. And while we will never know what really happened, my mind likes to wonder to the pressure put on women and sometimes the need to escape it all. She was a successful novelist and mother, while her husband was having an affair and her mom just passed away. That sounds like a lot to process, and sometimes you just need the chance to sort it all out without one distracting the other, so I like to think she wanted to get away and sort out how she was going to handle her life without being under the scrutiny of the media. This novel offers an interesting story on why and how she went missing, as well as what she was doing in the days she was gone. It also does an excellent job describing the different struggles women faced at the time (and continue to today), and how women were (and are) expected to deal with various situations as well as the lack of say in their own lives. While I would categorize this as Historical Fiction, it has some surprises at the end that are very “Agatha Christie” and made me smile. I didn’t see them coming, but they were executed extreamly well! This is an excellent read, and I am so glad I read it!


Thank you #NetGalley for the audiobook in exchange for a book review. This was more than I was expecting and I loved the surprises and element of mystery the book possessed.


Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

A little bit of everything jammed into this novel.. Historical fiction based on the 11 days Agatha Christie went missing after her husband told her he was leaving her for another woman. The story is narrated by the mistress which is a very interested point of view. A mystery, a thriller, a police investigation all keep the reader intrigued.

Nan O'Day, Mr. Christie's mistress takes us through the eleven days Agatha is missing along with flashing back to her history and how she became the second Mrs. Christie as we learn early in the novel. I haven't read any of the other books about Agatha's disappearance so I enjoyed hearing this point of view but I often found myself wondering what was the truth. Perhaps that's the biggest mystery- we don't know as Agatha herself never revealed.
There is a vast cast of characters, some of which are likeable and far more that are not.

TW: discusses sexual assault

Incredible novel! Nina de Gramont takes the reader on a journey with love, heartbreak, mystery, and hope. I’ve always wondered about Christie’s missing days and now I have a possible answer.