eden_paige 's review for:

The House of Fortune by Jessie Burton
4.5
adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book was fantastic. Based on the blurb, I was interested and unsure how this would be engaging enough for a 400 page read. My concern was that it would be all description and no plot development. I couldn't have been more wrong. This plot was so unique - engaging, exciting, heartwarming, heartbreaking - the whole package. 

However, I unfortunately didn't realise this was the 2nd book in a duology until about 300 pages in. Which meant that I was lacking quite a lot of context regarding the past lives of Nella, Otto and Cornelia, as well as the circumstances surrounding the miniaturist, Marin and Johannes. That didn't decrease my enjoyment of the novel, but it did leave me with a couple of unanswered questions. I'm going to go back and read the 1st book, 'The Miniaturist', to get some more context, but if you haven't started 'The House of Fortune', definitely read 'The Miniaturist' first.