Free shipping on orders over $99
The Miniaturist

The Miniaturist 2

by Jessie Burton
Publication Date: 03/07/2014
3/5 Rating 2 Reviews

Share This Book:

 
$29.99
The phenomenal Number One Bestseller Winner of the Specsavers National Book Award 2014 Waterstones Book of the Year 2014 Selected for the Richard & Judy Book Club 2015 There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed ...On an autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman knocks at the door of a grand house in the wealthiest quarter of Amsterdam. She has come from the country to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt, but instead she is met by his sharp-tongued sister, Marin. Only later does Johannes appear and present her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. It is to be furnished by an elusive miniaturist, whose tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in unexpected ways ...Nella is at first mystified by the closed world of the Brandt household, but as she uncovers its secrets she realizes the escalating dangers that await them all. Does the miniaturist hold their fate in her hands? And will she be the key to their salvation or the architect of their downfall?
Beautiful, intoxicating and filled with heart-pounding suspense, Jessie Burton's magnificent debut novel The Miniaturist is a story of love and obsession, betrayal and retribution, appearance and truth.
ISBN:
9781447250920
9781447250920
Category:
Contemporary fiction
Publication Date:
03-07-2014
Publisher:
Pan Macmillan
Country of origin:
United Kingdom
Pages:
400
Dimensions (mm):
234x154x33mm
Weight:
0.59kg
Jessie Burton

Jessie Burton is the author of the Sunday Times number one and New York Times bestsellers The Miniaturist and The Muse, as well as the Sunday Times bestseller The Confession 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

Click 'Notify Me' to get an email alert when this item becomes available

You can find this item in:

Show more Show less

Reviews

3.0

Based on 2 reviews

5 Star
(0)
4 Star
(1)
3 Star
(0)
2 Star
(1)
1 Star
(0)

2 Reviews

The Miniaturist is the first novel by British author, Jessie Burton. Amsterdam in the late 1680s is a prosperous place for merchants of the VOC (Dutch East India Company). When eighteen-year-old Petronella Oortman, newly married to wealthy merchant, Johannes Brandt, arrives at his luxurious home on the Herengracht, she is nervous but expectant: surely her life can only get better now that she has left Assendelft.

But Johannes is absent, and his sister Marin is less than welcoming. When her husband finally returns, things do not go as Nella had expected. He does, however, bring her a remarkable gift: a replica of their home in miniature. She engages the services of a miniaturist to craft items to furnish this amazing creation, but is disturbed by the accuracy of certain extra pieces, pieces she did not order.

As Nella becomes familiar with the household, it is soon apparent that neither people nor circumstances are what they first seem, and that the life she had expected, and perhaps even hoped, for is unlikely to be the one she will have. Before long, she discovers the shocking truth about her marriage, learns disturbing facts about her husband’s business dealings, surprising truths about other household members and about the elusive but seemingly prescient miniaturist.

Nella begins to realise that while there is abundant prosperity, there is very little tolerance in this Amsterdam “Where the pendulum swings from God to a guilder”. Within three months, this young innocent country girl has to draw on reserves she was unaware she had, along the way witnessing a drowning, a stabbing and a sexual act, attending a funeral, seeing a man condemned to death, bribing a prison guard, and handling the sale of a valuable commodity.

As she weaves a fictional world around real life characters, Burton also provides the reader with a wealth of information about late seventeenth century Amsterdam. Her extensive research is apparent in every paragraph. How interesting to imagine a time when sugar was rare enough to be a valuable commodity, and to actually view Nella’s cabinet house in the Rijksmuseum.

Burton also treats the reader to some marvellously evocative descriptive prose: “A spray of red pimples covers the second man’s forehead. He’s little more than a boy. God has been malicious with his paintbrush” and “The threads of Nella’s imagination begin to spool, embroidering conversations, patches of which it stitches loosely together” and “There is water everywhere she looks, lagoons as still as glass, patched with murk like a foxed mirror when the weak sun moves behind cloud” are just a few examples. This amazing debut novel is a brilliant read. 4.5 stars

Contains Spoilers No
Report Abuse

The first half of Jessie Burton’s novel The Miniaturist was intriguing and I really wanted to know why the miniaturist was sending Nella the figures and how she knew about their more private details. I didn’t feel this way in the second half of the book and was disappointed with some of the books revelations and the uncertainty of the Miniaturist’s motivations. The setting and the strained relationship between Nella and Marin held my attention though. And from start to finish I was just as invested as the characters in the sale of the Meerman’s sugar.

Contains Spoilers No
Report Abuse