Prompt – A book featuring one of the seven deadly sins. I would say that this book covers a number, but most notably lust, greed and envy.
Medium – Book
About the Book – Nella Oortman is sent off to Amsterdam to be married to a much older man at the age of eighteen. When she arrives she meets her new husband, who seems a little disinterested in her, together with his sister and their servants. As a wedding gift, Nella is given a doll’s house as a gift and goes about employing a miniaturist to create items for the doll’s house. However, the miniatures that are sent to her start to become uncomfortably true-to-life, and Nella begins to wonder how much the miniaturist really knows about her new family and their future…
My rating – 7/10. I picked this book up after having to put down another book I wasn’t really enjoying (but which I will try reading again later!). I liked the setting of the book and found it fairly easy to read and distracting from the whole COVID-19 stuff that is going on at the moment! I really liked the characters, particularly those of Nella, her husband and the servants, and found the storyline immersing. There were plenty of subplots to keep me reading and I particularly liked the bits of the story where Nella started to assert herself and her independence.
I also liked the fact that the author wasn’t afraid to finish the story with a bittersweet ending and that she was willing to keep a little mystery still going at the end of the story. It is the sort of book which could, quite happily, lend itself to a sequel, although I don’t think that there are any plans for that on the part of the author. Maybe that’s a good thing, leaving the characters where they were at the end of the book as they had all come so far, especially Nella. Overall, I would recommend the book, I down-graded it because I did not find it completely enrapturing – it took several days to finish, rather than grabbing me entirely!
Would I read it again? I enjoyed it, but probably not. I am thinking, however, about Jessie Burton’s next book ‘The Muse’ – although I have a lot more books to read before starting anything new!
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