Nella is an 18 year old girl who is married off to a wealthy merchant in Amsterdam in 1686. This story is about her marriage and new life in Amsterdam. 
 I really do not get the hype over this book. I really enjoyed the cover art for all the versions I've seen but that's about the only good thing I have to say. While the book is called The Miniaturist, the miniatures and miniaturist have very little to do with the actual story and could have been left out entirely. 
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 In fact while the extra items from the Miniaturist where strange I do not understand why Nella placed so much importance on them like they where tell her future. It's not like they told her 'oh by the way your husbands gay' or 'oh the sugars going bad' it was only after she found all that out that it showed up in the miniatures. So while it was weird that things with the miniatures just changed and her letters would just go missing and then items would show up I didn't get why she kept going to them to tell her what to do. Also it just seemed like the author was throwing in this magical element without even trying to flush it out or give it a reason. 
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 Nella shifts from being a sympathetic character to a brat with little warning. The storyline is sort of interesting but the book dragged and I was bored and itching for the book to be over so could just be done with it. 
 Also the language in this book was problematic from time to time. One the anachronisms became trying over time. Two, the book is written from the 1686 pov but then uses words like 'bomb' in the very modern usage and it comes off as jarring and wrong.