Highly recommend.

Beginning wth the breakup of Agatha Christie’s marriage the story is told on two parrallel tracks. The foundation story turns out to be a love story between a young English girl and an Irish boy who she meets while spending a summer on a farm in Ireland. They become lovers and she gets pregnant. She is sent to a nunnery amd is expected to give up her baby after it is born. She develops a strong emotional attachment to the baby and is devestated when it is given up for adoption. She escapes the nunnery and goes in search of the baby. Although she remains in love with the father World War one intervenes to prevent their marriage. She comes to believe Agatha Christie’s daughter is an adoptee and decides to replace Agatha as the mother by breaking up her marriage and then marrying Agatha’s husband, colonel Christie. She succeds to the point that Colonel Christie tells Agatha he is going to divorce her. After a brief emotional colllapse Agatha responds by running away from home. A seriwa of coincidences result in her being taken away bo a country hotel by the real father of Agatha’s daughter. He wants Agatha. to convince his lover to abandon the pursuit of Agatha’s husband and marry him. Agatha remains incognito and a massive search is launched to find her. The book is the story of the search and one particular detective involved in the search. It is interleaved with recapitulations of the story of events in the nunnery which by another coincidence become part of the story of the manor house where Agatha is hiding. I found the characters and their dilemmas came alive. to me. The author, a teacher of critical writing, weaves an immersive tale based on actual events.

I'm going to agree with the more disgruntled reviews. It's slow to start despite the hook on page one. Long draw multiple storylines, which I assume is only there to give time to the main murder. Highlight the abuse that occurs in nunneries in history. A hit to domestic violence. Child loss and, most importantly, Rape. I wish authors didn’t glorify these things to create a more “enticing” storyline, and I wish there were a TW in the chapter's footnotes. I think we all know what the Father was doing without having to wall through it, action by action. Aside from that. The multiple storylines weren't well executed, and the book is long-winded as a result.

You just can’t stop reading. So many surprises! Intriguing and lovely.

A wonderful book that allows your imagination to flow along each page as the author weaves her tale.

I throughly enjoyed this book,completely surprised at the twists and turns,a little slow at the beginning but then a Tornado of things revealed ! A must read ,I totally enjoyed !

There were so many stories going on at the same time, I constantly needed to review what I already read. She even mentioned wanting to go jogging with Mrs. Christie, really! I am not convinced that was a popular sport back in those days. No this book is done for me, after reading 3\4 of the book I just got mad one final time closed it and deleted it. One too many times writing about the poor pregnant mothers in the convent. Save yourself buy a different book.

This book will be an essential read in the “Where was Agatha Christie” genre starting to emerge. I preferred Benedicts The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, but The Christie Affair does a fantastic job of combining history and conjecture into a story of loss and new beginnings.

The two words I'd use to describe this: 'Clunky' and 'Disracted'. I had signed up for an Agatha Christie novel, to be left with very little focus on her. The premise? Strong. The execution? Poor. Too many B Plots take away from the main portion of this book, and too many narrators without context became quite jarring from moment to moment. Every narrator did not need to say something EVERY chapter, and yet-- my focus has to decipher who is speaking initially, causing me to reread several passages before comprehending in context where the attention should be. Never mind that there are so many jumps to the past that have far little to do with the present moment. It appears to be a feabile attempt at creating compassion for the main character, yet, every time these leaps to the past occurred I found myself getting more annoyed. There are a few highlight moments here, yet, the most dramatic moments still end anticlimactically. Greatly disappointed in this Reese's Book Club pick. I've loved so many of them-- this one fell flat in comparison.

A fine story but not captivating or noteworthy.