The Christie Affair features several love stories: the dying embers between Agatha and Archie, the fluttering new romance between Agatha and Chilton, and the lifelong tether between Finbarr and Nan. For both women in each of these great loves, a line is drawn between embracing that love and embracing their agencies.

In Nan’s case, Finbarr is unequivocally the love of her life. Their love persists throughout their childhood and to the time when Nan becomes pregnant and Finbarr is held out of reach by influenza. Even as their paths deviate, their bond remains unbroken, making the reader hope for their happy ending. However, Nan is faced with an impossible choice: the man she loves or the daughter they should have had. We feel her being pulled in two directions until the end: “And so he might persist in his attempts to lure me away, and if I saw him even one more time, I might very well succumb” (347). As readers, we want to believe that love conquers all; however, here true love is not enough. Nan chooses another kind of love, the one she feels for her daughter.

Agatha works her way through two contrasting love stories. In each of them, the thing that distinguishes her character is her independence.