The Homemade God

The Homemade God is a beautiful portrayal of family, art and the things we inherit from our parents, both creative and emotional. Joyce writes with great emotional acuity about the complexity of sibling relationships in a richly woven family drama, with all Joyce's trademark compassion and insight. It's a wonderful piece of storytelling.

Hannah Beckerman, author of The Forgetting

Sparkling and addictive … Rachel Joyce is so incredibly good and wise on families and siblings, pacing out a story’s secrets so that you have to read one more page. [It’s My Cousin Rachel meets The Enchanted April.] I couldn’t love it more.

Harriet Evans, author of The Stargazers and The Garden of Lost and Found

A new novel by Rachel Joyce is always a cause for celebration and this was no exception. I have always found something dark in her fiction and I feel this has been played down by reviewers at the expense of the warmth and healing that is also part of her great appeal. This terrific novel absolutely refused to be cosy and provided all sorts of misdirections and a sense of foreboding throughout. At first I could hear echoes of My Cousin Rachel and feel my anxieties and sympathies being expertly manipulated as I tried to work out who I was rooting for, but it was so much more subtle than that - none of the characters are wholly good or bad or dislikeable, because Rachel always shows us why they behave as they do. The missing picture was a neat image of the siblings' struggles to see their childhood with any kind of clarity. Another triumph of insight and empathy!

Clare Chambers

Lyrical, shrewd and, ultimately, as indecently satisfying as a four course Italian lunch, The Homemade God tells of four siblings surviving an artist father none can admit is a talentless monster and how the fallout of his death obliges each to shatter and rebuild their life. My life is a little emptier now it's over.

Patrick Gale, author of A Place Called Winter

The Homemade God is an enthralling, thought-provoking, layered novel, seamed with a delicious dark humour. And, as in all the best redemptive stories, through the rubble of grief glimmers hope, acceptance and love. Truly wonderful.

Sarah Winman, author of Still Life

Rachel Joyce’s latest novel is an absolute humdinger. Gripping, atmospheric, psychologically rich storytelling that gets to the absolute heart of parental love and loss. It’s also very funny. I haven’t been able to put it down.

Emily Howes, author of The Painter’s Daughters

A powerful and complex novel, subtly weaving together themes around grief, creativity and the strange loving violence of sibling relationships. Joyce sets the scene, then shifts gears several times throughout the novel, so that I was left almost breathless at her fearless depiction of the way grief changes us, and specifically changes the shape of a family. It also asks and answers bold questions about the source and nature of artistic expression. I have never read a novel with such a fearless depiction of the true nature of sibling relationships. I loved it.

Clover Stroud, author of The Giant on the Skyline

The Homemade God has brilliantly drawn characters that yank you in, an incredibly atmospheric setting, and the most gripping plot the author has ever written. It’s also a thought-provoking exploration of the nature and purpose of art and probably the wisest and most insightful study of sibling rivalry I’ve ever read. In short, it’s a masterpiece!

Matt Cain, author of The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle

Rachel Joyce is a treasure. Her novels are at once gentle and sharp-witted, closely observed and grand. In The Homemade God, she gives us a gorgeous Italian setting and the intrigue of a suspicious death and a missing painting. But this is so much more than a smart, sparkling vacation read. With humor and compassion, Joyce paints a complex portrait of a family with all of its baggage, eccentricities, charm, and heartbreak. It’s about the universal longing to express our artistic selves, to be loved and accepted. A beautiful novel.

Eowyn Ivey, author of The Snow Child and Black Woods Blue Sky

As ever with a Rachel Joyce novel, you almost forget you’re reading fiction, so convinced are you by the subtle yet sharp characterisation, and in the case of The Homemade God, the thousand tiny cuts that pass between people who love each other boundlessly yet hold decades-old grudges as only siblings can. The Handmade God does everything you want a novel to do.

Sarah Leipciger, author of Moon Road

Full of suspense and intrigue, this unputdownable novel is a gear change.

The Bookseller

The Homemade God makes you identify with every family member, in their loves, struggles and pain, just as their author-creator shows her own beautiful heart and joyful talent. What a grown-up delight.

Laline Paull

Rachel Joyce's The Homemade God is an exquisite and beautifully written exposé of a family torn apart by tragedy and almost destroyed by love. Her evocative and visceral description of the strange and alluring Italian island on Lake Orta made me feel like I was eavesdropping on her complex but endearing characters as their world falls apart. It made me laugh, it made me cry and I couldn’t put it down. If you are a fan of Maggie O’Farrell you must read this.

Louise Minchin, TV Presenter and author of Isolation Island

The Homemade God has all the flexed, pacey tautness of a thriller, even though at its heart it’s a quiet story about grief. I don’t understand how Rachel Joyce does it—writes about art and Italy and siblings hurting each other’s feelings, all while maintaining this steady, alarming thrum of dread. She’s a wonder.

Catherine Newman, NYT bestselling author of Sandwich

It's all here, dear readers. Art. Beauty. Pain. Redemption. A father who put his painting first, his romantic needs second and children, where ever he could spackle them into the picture with a putty knife. His death explodes their universe. There is scope and sweep here, as the children attempt to sort it all out in the Italian heat by Lake Orta. Rachel Joyce's masterful skill and emotional scope is dazzling. Brava!

Adriana Trigiani, author of The Good Left Undone

Rachel Joyce is a genius at creating complex, real, fractured characters and relationships. I didn’t just read about the four Kemp siblings, I became one of them, and I’m bereft now I’ve left them behind. The Homemade God is the most moving, beautiful and brilliant book I’ve read in a long time.

Claire Pooley, author of How to Age Disgracefully

Who would have thought a book about four neurotic siblings and their impossible father could be so engaging, intriguing and satisfying?

Prue Leith

The renowned artist - the emotionally starved children - what an inspired subject! Joyce writes with her trademark vitality and compassion and there is such colour here. So much at stake. I couldn’t put it down.

Esther Freud, author of Mr Mac and Me, Hideous Kinky and My Sister and Other Lovers

This insightful, witty, moving, suspenseful novel conjures Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited and the four lost Flyte siblings in thrall to their insidiously tyrannical parents. A triumph of imagination, The Homemade God gallops to the end, with a late chapter that brilliantly upends everything that came before. Rachel Joyce has a kaleidoscopic gift; at the slightest touch, the whole picture shifts. A rich and rewarding reaching experience in every way.

Susan Rieger, author of Like Mother, Like Mother

In Rachel Joyce’s The Homemade God, grief sends a family searching for impossible answers to big life questions, only to find they might not be ready for answers. ‘You think love costs nothing?’ Joyce shows us that the familial love force, like mad faith, can be so strong that even a fractured family can be sewn back together in the new world they must inhabit, having been turned upside down several times over. We all think our family is the one wracked with ruin; Joyce has rendered her relatable characters with such fondness you cannot help but hold space for them all–even the flawed ones.

DéLana R.A. Dameron, author of Redwood Court

A thoroughly engaging examination of familial truths that define and endanger the precious, ever-precarious sibling bond. The beautiful writing, unforgettable characters, and stunning setting make this a must-read.

Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry

The perfect holiday read ...There’s a new heft and grandeur, not only in the sophisticated characters and the fancy Italian real estate, but in the hidden darkness that can exist in a family. ... Rachel Joyce is firing on all cylinders.

Melissa Katsoulis, The Times

A beautifully written family drama ... Long after I finished the last page, I found I missed these characters – always the sign of a special book.

Good Housekeeping

Compulsive and darkly funny, Joyce’s books are a must-read for me and this did not disappoint.

Sarra Manning, Red Magazine

This is a captivating story of siblings, their intricate, shared and disparate lives, their unique ways of interpreting and experiencing the world.

Kerry Fowler, Sainsbury Magazine

THE BEST BOOKS OF 2025 SO FAR: Rachel Joyce has become known as an author of quiet, often older, lives. In The Homemade God, she changes track – and it works.

Robbie Millen, Sunday Times

The glamorous art world, juicy family discord, an Italian villa, potential murder—it’s hard to ask more from a summer read.

Kirkus Reviews

Woman's Weekly LOVES The Homemade God: As the simple story of a family falling apart unfolds, written in Joyce’s inimitable style, we ask whether some wounds are just too deep to heal.

Zoe West, Woman's Weekly

The mysterious death of an artist causes havoc among siblings in a novel that astutely observes family dynamics ... Joyce is also exceptionally good at blending the big stuff of life with the small ... a sharp, absorbing and emotionally intelligent novel.

Joanna Quinn, Guardian

Heartbreak and hopefulness marry in this warm, emotionally astute tale set in Italy.

Eithne Farry, Mail on Sunday

A masterly and deeply satisfying exploration of art, grief and familial bonds.

Hannah Beckerman, Observer

The Homemade God shares the characteristic generosity of Joyce's seven previous novels but there's something darker at play.

Erica Wagner, Harper's Bazaar

Fast-paced, savvy, emotionally driven, with shades of My Cousin Rachel.

SAGA magazine