So good I bought a physical copy for my shelf.

Absolutely engrossing and phenomenal writing. Burton has created a world so vivid and characters so interesting that I couldn't put this book down.

I was so excited for this sequel as I loved the miniaturist . It follows to thee daughter and her struggles growing up. I really like it.

I haven't had the chance to read the first part of this series and I feel like I need to read it before this one. I wish I knew this was a sequel, I would have avoided requesting it.

Nonetheless, I will give it a fair review whenever I get to it.
Thank you Netgalley for the arc

🌟 Review

Jessie Burton's "The House of Fortune" is a stunning sequel to her million-copy bestseller "The Miniaturist". Set in the golden city of Amsterdam in the 1700s, the story follows Thea Brandt as she turns eighteen and faces the challenges of becoming an adult. The family is struggling to make ends meet, and Nella, Thea's aunt, is determined to save them from ruin. When they receive an invitation to Amsterdam's most exclusive ball, Nella sees this as an opportunity to secure Thea's future.

The ball opens new doors for the family, but Nella starts to feel a strange sensation on the back of her neck. Memories of the miniaturist, who toyed with the Brandt family's fortunes eighteen years ago, come flooding back. The story is a beautiful blend of fate and ambition, secrets and dreams, and one young woman's determination to rule her own destiny.

Burton's writing is incredibly immersive, and the characters are well-developed and engaging. The plot is intricate and keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very end. "The House of Fortune" is a must-read for anyone who enjoys historical fiction with a touch of mystery. Highly recommended!

I cannot believe that I forgot that I had a Sampler of The House Of Fortune by Jessie Burton as I remember being so exicted to recieve this.
I was immediately drawn into and so immersed that it was a bit dissapointing to get to the end of the sample. I went straight onto Amazon and brought the ebook so that I could finish this book.

I highly recommend The House of Fortune to people who love historical fiction and mysteries.

The House of Fortune is the follow up to the fantastic and original The Miniaturist. It is 1705 and Thea is now 18. She lives with her aunt Nella and father Otto and is madly in love with an older man who works at the local theatre. The family’s fortunes are not what they were and Nella aims to find a suitably wealthy husband for the less enthusiastic Thea. When Thea find a miniature of her beloved it sets off a series of events that lead to heartbreak.
I found this book as original as the prequel, but it did not engage me as fully. The pace is quite slow and meandering which I did not find with The Miniaturist.

The follow up to The miniaturist is just as evocative and I loved the beautiful descriptions of life in the Brandt household. Thea is celebrating her eighteenth birthday and thinks she knows all there is to know about love. Whilst her father, aunt and maid want to her to lead a protected life, Thea has other ideas. With the Brandt family fortune quickly diminishing, will Thea be allowed to follow her heart? A great, compelling story with wonderful character development, delightful descriptions and plenty for you to puzzle over, I really enjoyed it. Thank you to Net Galley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I’m not sure about this one. The Miniaturist is one of my all time favourite books….but this one didn’t hold the same magic for me.
It was an enjoyable read but a little bit predictable.

I have to admit to being a HUGE Jessie Burton fan. I picked up The Miniaturist in our tiny bookstore just on the strength of the cover and I wasn’t disappointed. It followed the story of Nella, who has just become married to wealthy Amsterdam merchant Johannes Brandt and has been uprooted from the country to a large home in the city. As a wedding present, Johannes has commissioned a cabinet house based on his incredible home. This is a home of secrets, from Johannes to his rigid sister Marin and even the servants, all have their hidden lives. It’s when Nella commissions pieces from an unseen miniaturist that clues start to emerge. What is the miniaturist trying to tell her and will she see it before it’s too late? I met Jessie at a book event in Lincoln where she read from the book and took questions from the audience. She told us that Nella’s cabinet house was based on an example in the Rijksmusem in Amsterdam, something I’d love to go and look at one day. Someone asked about the mystery at the centre of her debut novel; we never see more than a glimpse of the miniaturist, we don’t know what she wants from Nella or why she sends the tiny figures. Burton said she didn’t want to pin it down or have a big reveal, so there was a suggestion from the audience that she was leaving it open for a sequel. When I found out about House of Fortune, I was excited but also scared. What if it didn’t match up to the debut that I loved?

As soon as I started to read I was right back there in Amsterdam. Jessie is a master at creating atmosphere and her opening is so evocative. The house feels almost claustrophobic and I could imagine the smell of polish and Cordelia’s cooking wafting from the kitchen. This is still a secretive house, where the previous generation’s actions are impacting on the next. We are eighteen years on from the terrible events of Nella’s first year of marriage - Johannes’s horrifying death at the hands of the state and the revelation of his sister Marin’s affair with Otto, their black servant. Her pregnancy was concealed for months under severe layers of black clothing and resulted in the birth of daughter Thea and Marin’s death. Thea is now 18 and Nella is trying to weigh up whether her darker skin might count against her in the marriage market, or whether the Brandt name keeps her just on the side of respectability? She certainly receives her share of gossip and sideways glances, but as they rarely socialise it’s never mattered before. However, things are changing in the Brandt household and Thea may be the only way the family survives. Things are moving behind the scenes, in the same way the scenery moves in the plays Thea loves at the theatre, but who is doing the moving and arranging? Both Nella and Thea have sensed a little frisson, a sense of being watched, followed by the hairs standing up on the back of their necks. When brown paper parcels start to appear on the townhouse steps Cordelia wonders if the miniaturist is back and what is her purpose?

Even now, this strange mysterious figure remains in the shadows, a flash of blonde hair under a hood is all we get and that could be anyone. There are two sets of figures in play here- the ones made for Nella 18 years ago that have been hidden away in a trunk full of Marin’s things in the attic. Then there are new ones, the first being a carving of Walter who is the scenery painter at the theatre Thea frequents every week. He’s completely anatomically correct, possibly because the maker is alluding to how Thea feels about him. Could this perfectly rendered man be an allusion to Thea having knowledge of a man she shouldn’t have? Is her carving a commentary on something that’s already happened or a course of action that could still be avoided? The second gift is a house, a tiny mansion edged in gold that Thea has never seen before, followed by a perfect pineapple. Thea really isn’t aware that their relatively respectable life in the city’s greatest townhouse is built on a house of cards. This unusual family are at a crossroads, no longer able to sustain themselves. They are down to their last painting, Otto has lost his job and there are three mouths to feed plus an historic house to maintain. Nella can see only one option - they must accept some of the social invitations that comes their way and use them to find Thea a rich husband. Otto is less enamoured of Nella’s plan for his daughter. He would like her to have the freedom of love. He has a different plan, involving a botanist called Caspar and Nella’s derelict country home of Assendelft. What neither of them know is that Thea is conducting a private life of her own, one that come crashing down on all of their plans.

I loved that Burton took us to Nella’s childhood, with the walls of Assendelft full of memories, good and bad. Over the eighteen years since Johannes’s death she has become a force to be reckoned with and this reminds us of how naïve and young she was at the beginning. I felt sad that she had almost written herself off, pinning all their hopes for the future on Thea and not even considering that she could be the one pursued by potential husbands. Wealthy widows can be very attractive in the marriage market and nobody knows what Johannes’s arrangements were for his wife. I felt that Nella didn’t want marriage, having been free for eighteen years it would certainly be hard to adjust to a more conventional woman’s role. I also really enjoyed being taken into the world of the theatre, where Thea is transfixed by the stories being told on stage. Her fear that someone has seen her hanging around backstage, especially since spending time with Walter really came across strongly. I felt for her and I wanted Thea to remember what it felt like to be a teenager with her whole family’s fortunes weighing heavy on her shoulders. Otto was a benevolent father, but had no others ideas as to how they could survive without selling the Brandt house. I was compelled to keep reading, completely caught up in the world of this strange family of outsiders, but also wondering if this time the miniaturist would be unmasked and her purpose revealed. I throughly enjoyed being back in Nella’s world and it renewed my desire to go to Amsterdam to see the original cabinet house that fired up Jessie’s imagination.

An excellent first chapter which brought me straight back to the world of The Miniaturist. I can't wait to see what has happened to the characters over the intervening 18 years.

The writing is just as beautiful I have come to expect from this author.

An enjoyable sequel to The Miniaturist but also would be good as a stand alone read as the author explains what has gone on before throughout the book. It is a fairly easy read with not too many characters or themes. My only criticism is I didn’t really see the point of the miniaturist in the book and her inclusion didn’t add anything to the story apart from continuing on from the first book where she was more involved as part of the story.

So nice to be reintroduced to Nella, Thea, Otto and Cornelia 18 years on. The has just turned 18 and wants to spread her wings - this was just the first chapter and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the book

Short sample.
Just thought to set my appetite.
Well written and intriguing, it will be interesting to see how the characters develop.

Fantastic sequel to the miniaturist - I would def recommend if you can reading the two books together as it was a couple of years since I read the miniaturist and it took me a few chapters to totally remember it - Jesse burton brings Amsterdam alive and the characters are unique to the time the story is set

I was so excited for the follow up to The Miniaturist! I was so grateful and happy to be given an ARC by Netgalley.

This book did not disappoint.

This book starts with Thea celebrating her eighteenth birthday and attending Amsterdam’s most exclusive ball at which potential husbands are met. There is one candidate that aunt Nella likes a lot, but not so much Thea as she has her heart set on Walter, painter at playhouse. And as it turns out, someone else knows her secret and now demands money or Nella’s life will be ruined.

This is a story about family dynamics and secerts which I adored. The characters were so well developed and engaging. It was so nice to revist characters that I loved so much.

Absolutely fantastic read, full of depth and intrigue, I always get excited with this authors books.

Beautiful beautiful writing from Jessie Burton, and an excellent sequel to The Miniaturist.

Thea is now an adult, and at the start of the 18th century, she's embarking on a new journey through life. No one will tell her anything about her mother Marin, who died giving birth to her, and her father and Aunt Nella although loving, are incredibly protective of her.

Thea uses her passion for the theatre as a means of escape from her domestic confines; unfortunately all does not end well in love for her and she's soon receiving secret parcels from the miniaturist herself.

If you loved The Miniaturist, make sure to pick this up, it takes you straight back to the atmosphere, sights and sounds, and of course the mystery of the miniature models which seem somehow to craft the story.

Another masterpiece by Jessie Burton. It’s 1705 and Jessie has taken us back to Amsterdam. It’s a scary place to be a woman. Eighteen years have gone by since The Miniaturist was in town. The baby born in the final chapters of the Miniaturist has grown up into a fine young woman who must find a husband who will save her family.
Old story, new setting. From the beginning there is intrigue, secrets, a past that won’t remain in the past and a young girl who wants to be master of her own destiny. Just when you think you have it all sussed out there is another twist in the tale.

Thank you Jessie for making this story a delight to read. Thank you to NetGalley and to Picador for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a continuation of the story begun in 'The Miniaturist'.

18 years have passed. Nella Brandt is still living in Amsterdam with Otto and Cornelia, and Otto's daughter Thea who has just turned 18. Her mother Marin died in childbirth.

Thea is in love with a man called Walter who is a scene painter at the theatre, but when she learns the truth about him she decides to enter into an arranged marriage with a wealthy man her aunt has met at a society event.

The family is struggling financially and the match seems an advantageous one, but is it the right decision for Thea?

This is a well-written story and it was interesting to read how the family dynamic has shifted, with Nella playing a more central role. Part of the narrative concerns Nella's family home and her reluctance to return; however, in the end, she does.

The relationships between Nella, Otto and Thea are not always easy, but they are able to overcome this and move forward. I particularly liked the ending and there is probably at least one more book in this series.

I received an ARC of this book from Pan Macmillan, in return for an honest appraisal.

This is on my list to buy right now.the miniaturist was one of my favourite books and I found it Erie and I really have to now visit the museum in Amsterdam