Jessie Burton Books in Order

If you want immersive historical Amsterdam: The Miniaturist → The House of Fortune
If you enjoy art, secrets and dual timelines: The Muse
If you like contemporary stories about identity and motherhood: The Confession
If you’re choosing for younger myth and fairy-tale fans: The Restless Girls → Medusa
If you want a magical middle-grade adventure set by the Thames: Hidden Treasure

Jessie Burton is an English novelist and former actor whose stories blend historical detail with an eye for the private lives of women. Her debut, The Miniaturist, turned a 17th century Amsterdam dollhouse into the seed of a global bestseller. Since then she has moved between adult fiction and books for younger readers, always circling questions of power, creativity and belonging.

Burton grew up in Wimbledon in south London, an only child in a tight three-person household. Her father worked first as an architect and later as a ceramic restorer, while her mother taught in further education. At Lady Margaret School in Fulham she discovered drama, finding a home on stage long before she found one on the page.

She went on to read English and Spanish at Brasenose College, Oxford, then trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. For several years she chased the life of a working actor, appearing in theatre, including at the National Theatre, and in small television roles. Like many actors, she paid the bills through temp jobs in the City when the auditions dried up.

Writing had been a quiet ambition since her teens, tucked away in notebooks. Commuting to office jobs and tapping scenes into her phone, she began what became The Miniaturist, a novel inspired by a visit to the Rijksmuseum and its famous dollhouse. It took years of part-time work to turn that spark into a finished book.

When the manuscript finally went out on submission, it triggered a bidding war and changed her life. The Miniaturist was published in 2014, sold in many countries, won major prizes, and later became a BBC television adaptation. Overnight, Burton found herself flying between festivals, doing hundreds of events and answering questions about success she was still trying to understand.

The pressure of that sudden visibility also exposed an older struggle with anxiety and depersonalisation, which she has written about with unusual openness.

Rather than retreat, she kept writing. The Muse followed in 2016, shifting between 1930s Spain and 1960s London to explore art, authorship and who gets credit for genius. The Confession traced the tangled connections between a young woman searching for her missing mother and a once famous novelist living in near seclusion. With The House of Fortune, Burton returned to the world of The Miniaturist, picking up the Brandt family’s story in 18th century Amsterdam through the eyes of a new generation.

The Restless Girls marked her first book for children, a vivid reworking of the tale of the Twelve Dancing Princesses in which twelve sisters fight for adventure and education. In Medusa she retells the Greek myth from the gorgon’s point of view, giving teenage Medusa a voice, agency and anger of her own. Most recently, Hidden Treasure takes readers to the banks of the River Thames during the First World War, following two children who find a mysterious jewel with the power to change their lives.

Across all of these books, Burton returns to certain touchstones, from claustrophobic households and secret selves to the ways women claim space in worlds that would rather keep them small. Her characters often stand at a threshold, trying to decide which version of their life to step into next.

Burton now lives in south-east London with her young son. She writes in a small garden studio she fondly calls her she shed, and in between novels she continues to publish essays and shorter pieces that reflect on travel, art and the sometimes messy business of making a life through words.