The House of Fortune is the sequel to Jessie Burton's million-copy bestseller The Miniaturist. Set in the golden city of Amsterdam in 1705, it is a story of fate and ambition, secrets and dreams, and one young woman's determination to rule her own destiny.
Thea Brandt is turning eighteen, and is ready to welcome adulthood with open arms. At the theatre, Walter, the love of her life, awaits her, but at home in the house on the Herengracht, winter has set in - her father Otto and Aunt Nella argue endlessly, and the Brandt family are selling their furniture in order to eat. On Thea's birthday, also the day that her mother Marin died, the secrets from the past begin to overwhelm the present.
Nella is desperate to save the family and maintain appearances, to find Thea a husband who will guarantee her future, and when they receive an invitation to Amsterdam's most exclusive ball, she is overjoyed - perhaps this will set their fortunes straight. And indeed, the ball does set things spinning: new figures enter their life, promising new futures. But their fates are still unclear, and when Nella feels a strange prickling sensation on the back of her neck, she wonders if the miniaturist has returned for her . . .

Portrait

Jessie Burton is the author of the Sunday Times number one and New York Times bestsellers The Miniaturist and The Muse, the Sunday Times bestseller The Confession, The House of Fortune, and the children's books The Restless Girls and Medusa. In its year of publication The Miniaturist sold over a million copies worldwide, and in 2017 it was adapted into a major TV series for BBC One. Her novels have been translated into forty languages, and she is a regular essay writer for newspapers and magazines. She lives in London.