What is Em reading now? Book Review #2 -- The Woman on the Orient Express by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

 

I'll start off by saying that I absolutely love Agathe Christie's Poirot novels, in particular Murder on the Orient Express. And that's what drew me to this book when I got it nearly a decade ago. And, if you've read my collection of short stories you totally know that the 1920s is *my* era. I haven't done much looking into Agatha Christie's life, but I was aware that she 'disappeared' at some point due to marital issues. So when I cam across The Woman on the Orient Express, how could I go wrong? 

This book starts you out at a much later date than the actual story starts. You see this story from the view of three different characters -- the three female leads. They are all going on this trip to the Middle East for very different reasons, each one holding a secret.  Having read Murder on the Orient Express, I was aware this is a 'historical fiction' book, pondering what could have happened, but I had preconceived ideas that the train itself would play a bigger, more mysterious scene than it actually did. However, the train was just getting the story and the characters to the Middle East where other things would happen, as what happened in several of the Poirot novels.

This went from more of an enticing mystery to a drama of friendship, life, and, as the back cover says, a sisterhood. It was interesting to read the author's recreation of the time and what it was possibly like in the countries they travelled through, which is much different than it is in today's time. The characters were likeable, the pace was even, and I found that I would look up different aspects of the real Agatha Christie's life just to learn about her. I honestly had no idea. Although there was an aspect of the plot regarding Agatha's story involving the character Nancy that confused me from beginning to the end, I suppose I'll have to go back and read to be sure I didn't accidently skip over the resolution while reading -- Was Nancy's beau the person Agatha thought it was or was it just Agatha's mind getting the best of her? (It is possible I put the book down, distracted by kids or other things, then went back and picked it up on the wrong page.)

It was a decent read, I'm glad I finally got to read it. Again, it wasn't the riveting mystery I had thought it was when I originally bought it,  but I learned several things along the way, especially about the life of Agatha Christie. I marked it as "read" on my GoodReads and gave it 4 stars. I can recommend it if you do enjoy historical fiction with drama, life, and a sisterhood formed by life's unforeseen events.

You can read it for free on Kindle Unlimited, and it is also an audiobook as well as paperback at Amazon.