Now a tv miniseries, as seen on Masterpiece in PBS

Set in seventeenth century Amsterdam-a town ruled by glittering wealth and oppressive religion-a masterful debut steeped in atmosphere and shimmering with mystery, in the custom of Emma Donoghue, Sarah Waters, and Sarah Dunant.

“There is nothing at all hidden that will not end up being revealed .”

On the brisk autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin with a new existence as the wife of illustrious vendor trader about The Miniaturist: A Novel Johannes Brandt. But her brand-new home, while splendorous, isn’t welcoming. Johannes can be kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office-leaving Nella only along with his sister, the sharp-tongued and forbidding Marin.

But Nella’s world changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding present: a cabinet-sized reproduction of their house. To furnish her present, Nella engages the providers of a miniaturist-an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny masterpieces mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unpredicted ways . . .

Johannes’ gift helps Nella to pierce the closed world from the Brandt home. But simply because she uncovers its unusual secrets, she starts to understand-and fear-the escalating risks that await all of them. With this repressively pious culture where gold is worshipped second only to God, to be different is a risk to the moral fabric of society, and not even a man as wealthy as Johannes is certainly safe. Only one person appears to see the fate that awaits them. Is the miniaturist the key to their salvation . . . or the architect of their damage?

Enchanting, beautiful, and exquisitely suspenseful, The Miniaturist is a magnificent story of love and obsession, betrayal and retribution, appearance and truth.