The House of Fortune # The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

                                                

Hardback:  401 pages                                                                                                 
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Picador 2022
Source: Tywyn Public Library
First Sentence: At eighteen, Thea is too old to be celebrating birthdays. 
Review Quote: Clever and satisfying . . . Burton is an acute observer . . . A worthy sequel, mature and thoughtful ― Guardian

My Opinion: Having read and enjoyed 'The Miniaturist' back in 2016 I was keen to read this sequel.

'The House of Fortune' takes the reader back to Amsterdam some eighteen years later. It is 1705 and Thea Brandt turns eighteen. It is time for the family to find her husband , who will help save the family from financial ruin. However Thea is a headstrong young woman and determined to control her own destiny.

A character driven story, which showcases the difficulties women faced in this era, with the expectations forced upon them. If you liked 'The Miniaturist' I can recommend this sequel.  In my opinion although you can read it without reading the previous novel you will find it makes more sense if you have done so. 



Précis Courtesy of Goodreads:

The House of Fortune is the sequel to Jessie Burton’s million copy bestselling 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 . . .

Previous Review:  The Miniaturist

Author Profile

                                                        © Vogue UK, Hugh Stewart

Jessie Burton is the author of four novels, The Miniaturist, The Muse, The Confession, and The House of Fortune. She was born in January 1982 in the United Kingdom.

The Miniaturist and The Muse were Sunday Times no.1 bestsellers in both hardback and paperback, New York Times bestsellers, and Radio 4's Book at Bedtime. The Miniaturist went on to sell over a million copies in its year of publication, was Christmas no.1 in the UK, National Book Awards Book of the Year, and Waterstones Book of the Year 2014.  In 2017 it was adapted as a two-part miniseries on BBC One, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Alex Hassell and Romola Garai, screened over Christmas, and now available on DVD and streaming services. The Confession was an instant Sunday Times bestseller, and Radio 4 Book at Bedtime​. The House of Fortune was a Sunday Times no.1 bestseller in hardback, and the paperback was released in July 2023.

Her novels have been published in 40 languages.

Jessie's first book for children, The Restless Girls, was published in September 2018, and Medusa, her second, in October 2021. Medusa was shortlisted for the 2023 Carnegie Medal for Children's Writing. ​Her story 'Daphne and the Doughnuts' appeared in The Book of Hopes, a collection of children's stories published in 2020, from which all profits go to the NHS. 

As a non-fiction writer, she has written essays and reviews for The New York Times, Harpers Bazaar UK, The Wall Street Journal, The Independent, Vogue, Elle, Red, Grazia, Lonely Planet Traveller and The Spectator. Harpers Bazaar US and Stylist have published her short stories.



Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites.

Goodreads - Author Profile    Amazon - Jessie Burton Page    Jessie Burton - Official Website.   Instagram Profile

Picador - Author Profile.

Still Life by Sarah Winman

 

                                             

Hardback:   438 pages

Genre: Literary Fiction, 

Publisher: 4th Estate, Harper Collins 2021

Source:  Tywyn Library

First Sentences: Somewhere in the Tuscan hills, two English spinsters, Evelyn Skinner and a Margaret someone, were eating a late lunch on the terrace of a modest albergo.

Review Quote: "The sheer joy in [Winman's] storytelling is completely infectious. I've loved spending time with this unforgettable cast of characters in extraordinary times and places." --Graham Norton

Favourite Quote:  “Beautiful art opens our eyes to the beauty of the world, Ulysses. It repositions our sight and judgement. Captures forever that which is fleeting.”

My Opinion: 

 At last I got hold of a copy of 'Still Life', which I have been wanting to read for a long time. It was worth the wait as for the last five days I have been transported to Florence in my beloved Italy with a wonderful cast of characters. I did not want it to end.

The main protagonists are Ulysses Temper and Evelyn Skinner. The novel revolves around the life of Ulysses from 1944 when as a young soldier he first meets Evelyn. A kindred spirit whose friendship influences his life over the next four decades.

Such a beguiling tale of a dynamic cast of characters which I highly recommend to everyone. Read slowly and savour this bittersweet story.

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads: 

Tuscany, 1944: As Allied troops advance and bombs fall around deserted villages, a young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, finds himself in the wine cellar of a deserted villa. There, he has a chance encounter with Evelyn Skinner, a middle-aged art historian who has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the ruins and recall long-forgotten memories of her own youth. In each other, Ulysses and Evelyn find a kindred spirit amongst the rubble of war-torn Italy, and set off on a course of events that will shape Ulysses's life for the next four decades.

As Ulysses returns home to London, reimmersing himself in his crew at The Stoat and Parrot -- a motley mix of pub crawlers and eccentrics -- he carries his time in Italy with him. And when an unexpected inheritance brings him back to where it all began, Ulysses knows better than to tempt fate, and returns to the Tuscan hills.

With beautiful prose, extraordinary tenderness, and bursts of humor and light, Still Life is a sweeping portrait of unforgettable individuals who come together to make a family, and a richly drawn celebration of beauty and love in all its forms.

Author Profile:                            

                                   

                                                                  Courtesy of Goodreads

Sarah Winman (born 1964) is a British actress and author. In 2011 her debut novel When God Was a Rabbit became an international bestseller and won Winman several awards including New Writer of the Year in the Galaxy National Book Awards.

Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Amazon Author Page.   Goodreads Author Profile

The Last Song of Dusk by S.D. Shanghvi

                                              

Paperback:   309 pages

Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction, India,

Publisher:  Orion, Phoenix 2005

Source:  A friend

First Sentence:  On the day Anuradha Patwardhan was leaving Udaipur for Bombay to marry a man she had not even met in the twenty-one years of her existence.

Review Quote: “A cornucopia of life at full tilt and high colour . . . Shanghvi–who’s been compared to Arundhati Roy, Zadie Smith, and Vikram Seth–combines ribald humour with prose poetry.”

–Sunday Oregonian

My Opinion: 

 I doubt this book is one I would have chosen to read, I did so as it was given to me by a friend. A very lyrical novel in style but be warned some of the scenes contain very explicit content. 

The novel tells the magical and at times unrealistic story of the main protagonist Anuradha, after she leaves home as a young girl to marry a man she has never met. What kept me reading was the setting in 1920's India.

If you are interested in novels set in India where you can learn some of the history of the country and become involved in the lives of the characters, then this is one you will enjoy.

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads: 

“Set in 1920s India, this magical debut novel tells the story of beautiful Anuradha, whose songs are spellbinding, but whose fate is troubled.”
–Elle

When the astonishingly lovely Anuradha moves to Bombay to marry Vardhmaan, a charming young doctor, their life together has all the makings of a fairy tale. But when their firstborn son dies in a terrible accident, tragedy transforms their marriage into a bleak landscape. As the pair starts fresh in a heartbroken old villa by the sea, they are joined by Nandini, a dazzling and devious artist with a trace of leopard blood in her veins. While Nandini flamboyantly takes on Bombay’s art scene, the couple attempts to mend their marriage, eventually discovering that real love, mercurial and many-hued, is given and received in silence. Sensuous and electric, achingly moving and wickedly funny, The Last Song of Dusk is a tale of fate that will haunt your heart like an old and beloved song.

Author Profile:    

                                       

Shanghvi was born in Juhu, Mumbai, India in 1977. He is an alumnae of Mumbai’s Mithibai College, and later pursued an MA in International Journalism at the University of Westminster, London, where he specialised in Photography in 1999.
He is an Indian author in English-language whose notable books include, The Last Song of Dusk and The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay. His book, The Last Song of Dusk, has been translated into 10 languages.

Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Amazon Author Profile.   Goodreads Profile

The Birdcage by Eve Chase

                                                          

Ebook:   400 pages

Genre: Fiction, Suspense, Family Mystery, 

Publisher:  Penguin April 2022

Source:  My Kindle

First Sentences: The snow is still falling, feathery flakes whirling in the golden light f the train window then sucked into the black. But the 14.04 London - Penzance keeps hurtling west, drawing Lauren closer to rock Point, the house she fled one summer's day twenty years before.

Review Quote: 'Daphne du Maurier for the modern day' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

My Opinion: 

This is the second title by this author that I have read and just like 'The Glasshouse' it is story of secrets centred around a family home.

Rock Point is the family home of the Finch sisters, Flora Kat and Lauren. They share a father, the artist Charlie Finch but they all have different mothers. It is 2019 and the girls have been summonsed to the family home by their father as he has something he wishes to tell them altogether.  It has been twenty years since they were all there together the summer of the eclipse when there was a horrendous event at the house. Ever since then the three girls have lived with the terrible memories and torment. It is now time for them all to learn from the mistakes the past and trust each other again.

Full of secrets, great characters and an atmospheric setting 'The Birdcage' will appeal if you are a fan of family mysteries.

Previous Review :   The Glasshouse

Précis Courtesy of Goodreads: 

Kat, Flora and Lauren are half-sisters who share a famous artist father - and a terrible secret.

Each has found their way of burying it. Over the years they've grown apart, and into wildly different lives. But an invitation to Rock Point, the Cornish cliff house where they once sat for their father's most celebrated painting, Girls with Birdcage, reunites them.

Rock Point is a beautiful, windswept place, thick with secrets, electrically charged with the one subject the family dare not discuss. And there is someone in the shadows watching the house, their every move. Someone who remembers the girls in the painting. What they did.

The sisters must unlock the truth to set themselves free - and find each other again.

Author Profile:         

Courtesy of  Clare Borg-Cook

The following is what Eve has to say about herself on her Website.

I write from a studio/shed in my townhouse garden in Oxford. A small space, it's perfect for cooking up bigger ones. I love to write about sprawling, dysfunctional families in curious, characterful settings. A crime usually beats at the heart of my books. As I love stories that envelope you in their world but also read at a page-turning pace, I try to write them too. 

Married with three children. Owner of a very hairy golden retriever called Harry. 

Studied English Literature at Manchester University and went on to do a post-grad in journalism. I once edited a street fashion magazine, Scene (no longer on the scene, or in existence) and wrote for many publications including Dazed and Confused, Punch, InStyle, Red, Marie-Claire, You and national newspapers.
​
I read all the time, happily hopping between authors and genres. My ever changing list of favourite authors include Maggie O'Farrell, Liane Moriarty, Kate Atkinson, Elizabeth Strout, Diane Athill, Donna Tartt, Lisa Jewell, Raymond Carver, Jane Austen, Kate Morton, Hilary Mantel, and Barbara Vine.

I love hearing from readers. You really make all the hours writing away on my own worthwhile. Please drop by on Insta/Facebook/Twitter and say hello.

Thank you so much to those of you who've taken the time to read my books, review and blog about them. 

Happy reading! 

Photographs and Biographical Information courtesy of the following sites:

Instagram Profile  Author's Official Website  Eve Chase - Facebook Profile

Twitter - EvePollyChase   Amazon Author Page  Eve Chase - Goodreads Author Profile