Hello, Book Nerds! Welcome back to Reading Has Ruined My Life or welcome if you are new. As always, my name is Hannah and I am your captain on this journey into my bookcases.
I’ve talked royalty. I’ve talked thriller. Tis time to talk history. When I’m writing this, it’s July and July is my history era. I’m really down the rabbit hole this month. I just recorded an episode of my podcast about Christine de Pizan, I recently went down a rabbit hole regarding Anastasia, and now I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of Agatha Christie’s mysterious disappearance.
Speaking of Ms. Christie, please give a warm welcome to The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont!
As always, a spoiler alert is in order. If you’ve read any other post on this site then you know I love to spoil the entirety of the books I read. This is your one and only warning. I also must issue a content and trigger warning. The Christie Affair deals with rape and abuse. The inclusion of these topics is very important to the plot and cannot be avoided. There are also mentions of child death, specifically stillbirth, again this topic is important to the plot and cannot be avoided. Finally, there is doggy death. Yes, I bawled like a baby. Please be aware that all these topics are in the story. I really didn’t anticipate them when I began this book, but they are there and their inclusion is pretty necessary. I will not be discussing these topics in my review though. With that, let’s get to the synopsis.
In this fictional account of Agatha Christie’s infamous disappearance, the famous mystery novelist leaves everyone behind thanks to her husband asking for a divorce. Just like in real life, Mr. Christie was having an affair. In this story his mistress is our main character and goes by Nan O’Dea. While a villain to Agatha Christie, Nan is quite the sympathetic character, an anti-hero if you will.
Now this is Nan’s story more than it is Agatha’s. For three years leading up to Agatha’s disappearance Nan has been Mr. Christie’s mistress. She's slowly turned herself into his perfect woman. Which is basically a younger version of Agatha but I digress. Now Nan isn’t doing this because she hates Agatha Christie and wants to see her marriage destroyed. She isn’t doing this because Mr. Christie is the love of her life nor has he wronged her in some way and wants to see him destroyed. Nay, nay. Nan is doing this for her family.
Long ago, Nan fell in love with an Irish lad. Then World War One happened and everything changed. By the end of the war she has found herself in a convent…and she’s pregnant. A single lady pregnant in the late 1910s? Scandalous! By the time Nan becomes Mr. Christie’s mistress, she has been separated from her beloved child for many years and all she wants is to have a family. She specifically wants to be with her child who Mr. Christie may or may not have a connection to.
That’s not all this book is about though. We still have Agatha’s disappearance to talk about. She goes on the run to a little vacation town and hides away for nearly a fortnight. No idea what her plan is exactly. It may be to fight for her cheating husband. It may be to fight Nan. Maybe stay hidden from the world and leave everyone wondering about what happened to her is goal. Maybe the goal is to return to her home and daughter and pretend nothing ever happened. Who knows. Also, a murder happens.
I apologize, this is a hard one to write a synopsis for. The Christie Affair has a lot of moving parts, and I fear writing too much of the plot will spoil the story much more than I’d like.
Honestly, that’s my biggest issue with the book. The story is not told linearly. It jumps between Nan’s past and the present when Agatha Christie has disappeared. The focus also switches between Nan and Agatha every few chapters. It is easy to tell when the story is in the past and in the present and who the focus is on, but as I’ve said, there are too many moving parts. There’s Agatha’s disappearance, there’s Nan’s various lovers and her internal conflict, there’s the murder, and most importantly, there’s Nan’s baby backstory to deal with. Every part of this story is well written. Every part is good. And I’d gladly read a whole book about Agatha’s disappearance or about Nan’s first love and the trauma she suffered in a convent. But paired together they take focus away from each other. There are too many stories happening at the same time. Some topics should have been cut so more focus could be on the others.
That is truthfully the only issue I have with this novel. I love a good mystery, I love historical fiction, and the drama in The Christie Affair is top rate. Like I said, there’s just too much going on.
Let’s talk characters now. All the main characters live in that gray space I love so much. I’m specifically talking Nan and Agatha here. Nan is doing some really shady shit in this book, but the moment you learn her motivations you can’t help but feel sympathetic towards her. All she wants is her family and she’s doing the most to get it. She’s so driven by getting her daughter back that she’s not stopping to think about everyone who she’s hurting. Agatha, while significantly less shady, allows the whole of England to believe she’s seriously hurt or dead. She has her reasons and chooses herself and causes panic. I support women’s rights and wrongs so pop off queens.
Both these women are human. They’re messy. They’re real. They aren’t perfect by any means. At the end of the day they are simply people going through a hard time and fighting for themselves. Both women have been wronged and a making their worlds right; even if they go about it in some questionable ways.
The Christie Affair is a fine book. I had an enjoyable time reading it. It simply felt as if I had multiple books in one and I don’t mean this in a good way. The plot could have used a tad bit more streamlining. The way it stands, I find The Christie Affair to simply be fine. Another solid three star read if I’m rating a book out of five.
With that, I must bid you all adieu. I shall see you all again next week with another new post; a very special new post. Hint: it’s something I haven’t done in quite some time. If you can’t wait that long then you can always check out my podcast Nothing to See Hear. You can listen to the show over on Spotify and YouTube. Allow me to tell you a spooky story, listen to me and two of my friends review a Disney film, or let us tell you all about a weirdo of history. And stay tuned for that Christine de Pizan episode I mentioned. End of the day, there is bound to be an episode of the show you’ll find interesting.
Until next time, stay safe, wash your hands, and read some good books for me.
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