Tag: agatha christie

Book Review | Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley

Posted July 10, 2026 by Haze in Book Reviews / 1 Comment

Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley

‘Nobody in the world was more inadequate to act the heroine than I was.’

Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was ‘just’ an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn’t? As Lucy Worsley says, ‘She was thrillingly, scintillatingly modern’. She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through devastating mental illness.

So why – despite all the evidence to the contrary – did Agatha present herself as a retiring Edwardian lady of leisure?
She was born in 1890 into a world which had its own rules about what women could and couldn’t do. Lucy Worsley’s biography is not just of an internationally renowned bestselling writer. It’s also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman.

With access to personal letters and papers that have rarely been seen, Lucy Worsley’s biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realise what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was – truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2026 Nonfiction Reader Challenge
2026 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #46: Non-fiction about character in prompt 45)

The Reason

For the 2026 52 Book Club Reading Challenge to pair with another prompt.

The Quotes

“Evil people are those who will not or cannot grow up,’ Agatha wrote. ‘A man who is a child,’ says one of her characters, ‘is the most frightening thing in the world.”

“Like so many writers, Christie was an introvert. She didn’t seek publicity and in fact often fled from it. Many members of the public seemed to resent her unwillingness to open herself to them”

“Christie’s success came as a woman in a world made by men.”

“Someone once said that the greatest character Agatha Christie ever invented was Agatha Christie herself.”

The Narrator(s)

The author, Lucy Worsley. It was great, no notes.

My Thoughts

I recently read The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont for the 2026 52 Book Club Reading Challenge prompt for biographical fiction and it was paired with another prompt to read a nonfiction about the character in the book for the first prompt. I did not like The Christie Affair very much and thought the drama surrounding her disappearance was much ado over nothing, to the point where I was questioning if I should read another, different book for that prompt so that I wouldn’t have to read about it again in a nonfiction setting. The Christie Affair represented Christie so badly that I wasn’t sure I wanted to know more even though I have always been curious about her.

It took me a while to find a nonfiction book about Agatha Christie that looked interesting, and even then I was hesitant, but I’m so glad I stuck with it because this book ended up getting me so interested and invested in Christie’s life and works again. She really came to life for me, and I loved how the book told her story from her birth until her death and made it all sound so exciting.

The “downside” is that now I have to add a whole bunch of Christie’s books to my already massive TBR. I first discovered her books from my school library and binge-read as many as I could when I was 11 or 12 years old, but I’m sure I missed a lot of details at that age, and I’d love to rediscover them again now and read them with more mature eyes. I really enjoyed this book and finding out more about Christie’s real life. I’m excited to reread her books too!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont

Posted March 16, 2026 by Haze in Book Reviews / 2 Comments

The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont

Nina de Gramont’s The Christie Affair is a beguiling novel of star-crossed lovers, heartbreak, revenge, and murder—and a brilliant re-imagination of one of the most talked-about unsolved mysteries of the twentieth century.

Every story has its secrets.
Every mystery has its motives.

“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.”

The greatest mystery wasn’t Agatha Christie’s disappearance in those eleven infamous days, it’s what she discovered.

London, 1925: In a world of townhomes and tennis matches, socialites and shooting parties, Miss Nan O’Dea became Archie Christie’s mistress, luring him away from his devoted and well-known wife, Agatha Christie.

The question is, why? Why destroy another woman’s marriage, why hatch a plot years in the making, and why murder? How was Nan O’Dea so intricately tied to those eleven mysterious days that Agatha Christie went missing?

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2026 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #45: Biographical fiction)

The Reason

I needed a book for the 52 Book Club challenge prompt and I’d been curious about Agatha Christie’s mysterious disappearance.

The Quotes

“Sometimes a life is so entirely disrupted, on such a large and ungraspable scale, all one can do is face the ruined day.”

“Obedience seemed the safest plan. I hadn’t learned yet. In this world it’s the obedient girls who are most in danger.”

“I see the kind of determination you only recognize if you’ve felt it yourself. Determination born of desperation transformed into purpose.”

“We both know you can’t tell your own story without exposing someone else’s.”

The Narrator(s)

Lucy Scott. It was pretty good.

My Thoughts

This is a work of fiction so I know it’s not what actually happened with Agatha Christie’s disappearance, but even just taking it as a work of fiction, I find it very hard to suspend my belief because the whole “reveal” is such a reach. I wish I could talk about it more without spoiling it, and to be fair, I’m not sure it’s an actual spoiler because it’s quite obvious throughout the book that it was leading us there. However, it’s not Nan’s reason itself that doesn’t make sense to me, it’s Christie’s reaction to it, and perhaps just the way the story was told. The vibes are great, the story not so much.

I am still very curious about Agatha Christie in general though, and I’m glad I chose this book for the corresponding prompt, because there’s another prompt for a nonfiction book related to the character in this book and I get to read something real about Christie!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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