The House of Fortune
by Jessie Burton, Macmillan
It is 1705 and we are back in the Amsterdam of Jessie Burton’s 2014 novel The Miniaturist, only a generation later. While this is a standalone, if you haven’t read the first novel, now is the perfect opportunity. The power of Burton’s writing is in the lush three-dimensional world she creates – it’s as if the paintings of the Dutch masters have sprung to life, the damp streets and elegant houses of the waterside city alive with dark, complex characters.
Nella Brandt, the heart of the first novel, is now a widow grappling with the disgrace heaped on her house following the death of her husband Johannes at the end of the first book, and the prurient fascination with
