Book Review
House of Fortune: Burton makes a welcome return to the dramatic milieu of 17th-century Amsterdam
Author of the hugely successful The Miniaturist, Jessie Burton revisits Petronella Oortman and the Brandt family 19 years after her that novel in a story that weaves coming-of-age plotlines, a marriage story and a mystery
Jessie Burton’s debut novel The Miniaturist, published in 2014, was a huge commercial hit, translated into 30 languages and an international bestseller. Inspired by Petronella Oortman’s doll’s house (on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam), it was set in late 17th-century Amsterdam and imagined a fictional life for 18-year-old Petronella, centred upon her marriage into the rich but mysterious Brandt family, and her strange connection to her doll’s house and a miniaturist who furnishes it.
