The House of Fortune
JESSIE BURTON
(PICADOR, 416 PP, £16.99)
Tablet bookshop price £15.29 • tel 020 7799 4064
The nature of the mysterious miniaturist, whose tiny carved dolls gifted to the Brandt family of Amsterdam seemed to predict future joys and calamities, was left hanging at the conclusion of Jessie Burton’s bestselling debut. It was almost as if the author didn’t know how to tie up her own loose ends. Though two standalone novels followed (The Muse and The Confession), perhaps Burton always intended to return to the Dutch Golden Age with its tulips, tall houses and canals. It’s now 1705, 18 years after the action of The Miniaturist, and the focus has switched to the next generation.