Judy's Review:
Jessie Burton returns to early 18th century Amsterdam for this compelling and beautifully written sequel to her fabulously successful blockbuster The Miniaturist.
The House of Fortune begins in 1705, on the eighteenth birthday of Thea, the scandalously illegitimate baby born at the end of the previous novel. To Thea’s frustration, nobody in the Brandt household will talk about her birth, or her mother, who died in childbirth.
Thea’s father, Otto, is black, a former slave now working for the Dutch East India Company. Nella, the heroine of The Miniaturist, is a widow in her late thirties. Thea’s mother was Nella’s sister-in-law, and she feels responsible for this beautiful young woman who, biracial and illegitimate, is isolated from wealthy Amsterdam Society.
