Book Club

Mary Westmacotts

For fifteen years Agatha Christie managed to keep a secret from the world. The secret was that she also published six novels under the name Mary Westmacott. These were not crime novels - Christie described them as "straights novels".

Part romance, part autobiographical, they give a fascinating insight into another aspect of Christie's work and are well worth reading in their own right.

Warning: These discussions may contain spoilers!

Unfinished Portrait

Jemma 28 Aug 09 at 10 a.m. GMT

Reading this novel is almost like reading Agatha Christie’s autobiography.  It’s so interesting to speculate about why Christie wrote this book.  Was it just a case of an author ‘writing about what you know’, or was it a way of exorcising some of the demons that had haunted her life thus far?

There are stories told about Celia’s life that are truly straight from Agatha’s own life and you’ll spend a lot of time putting two and two together and maybe not always coming up with four!

We can of course never know the whole truth about Agatha’s relationship with her first husband Archie Christie but this book really does lend itself to endless wondering.

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3 replies

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Rea_Potter 19 Mar 10 at 4:47 p.m. GMT

Never mind, the Chorion send me the poem.

Rea_Potter 10 Mar 10 at 4:40 p.m. GMT

Could somebody write to me the poem (about an island) in the first page? I search on the internet for it, but find nothing. It is important to me.

Thank you very much!

christiefanatic 13 Feb 10 at 2:58 a.m. GMT

omg..I just finished reading this one and am wondering why Celia and Peter didn't get married..I was so sad..I really wanted them to get together.