Four siblings, Netta, Susan, Goose and Iris are in and out of each other’s life. Their father, Vic Kemp is a well known artist and also self-centered, negligent to a point, and all-encompassing. When Vic marries a much younger woman Bella but dies shortly thereafter, life goes very much awry. The siblings head to Italy, to the lake where summers where an idyllic time and the memories are sweet. However, this gathering is full of stress, tensions and angst that will tear the siblings apart. How did Vic die? Was it an accident or murder? What happened to his last painting?

This book was contentious at times, sad at others, reflective and heartbreaking. But, there was also joy, laughter, empowerment and contentment. The family dynamic between the siblings is front and center of this novel. As a reader, you are in the front row, watching the drama unfold, seeing how each sibling handles the death of their father but also seeing how their father affected them growing up. It’s both beauty and pain at the same time. Beautifully written, this is an engaging book.

As an only child, I felt this book was somewhat a revelation. I felt as though I was living with this group of siblings, the chaos, the drama, the unending love. I found the writing to be heartbreakingly, beautiful, the highs and the lows. We can hurt each other in devastating ways. Even though the themes of this book are quite sad it is done and a way that doesn’t feel hopeless. The Idealic setting helps, but even that is a place of trauma. This book would be a perfect book club pic as there are so many feelings to delve into.

I want to thank NetGalley and The Dial Press of Random House Publishing Group for allowing me to read and review The Homemade God by author Rachel Joyce. She is also the author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry which I enjoyed very much.
This is the story of a family of 4 very different children whose lives revolved around their famous artist father. His talent was questionable! And then the young mysterious Bella Mae and her cousin (?) Laszlo enter the picture.
It’s a character study for sure!
It’s a mystery!
The Homemade God is scheduled to publish 06/24/2025.

Rachel Joyce has a gift for exploring the quiet tragedies and small triumphs of people, and The Homemade God is no exception. With her signature blend of lyricism and introspection, Joyce crafts a narrative that examines family, siblings, grief, art, and the fragile constructs we build to make sense of a chaotic world.

The novel follows four adult siblings whose lives begin to unravel when their semi-famous painter father Vic, a man in his 70s, marries 27-year-old Bella-Mae after knowing her for only five weeks. As the story unfolds, Joyce introduces us to a cast of characters each grappling with their own search for meaning, anchored by a central motif: the idea of creating one’s own beliefs in the absence of answers.

Joyce’s prose is, as always, elegant and emotionally precise. There are passages here that are truly breathtaking, and a few moments that hit with such emotional clarity they linger long after the page is turned. However, the pacing lags quite a bit in the middle chapters as the siblings and Bella-Mae do little besides wait and drink.

Where the novel shines most is in its tender exploration of belief—not necessarily in the religious sense, but in the ways people choose to believe in love, in each other, in rituals, and just maybe, in their own ability to keep going. Joyce never offers neat resolutions, but she does offer grace, which in the case of The Homemade God is more than enough.

A thoughtful, if uneven, novel that rewards patient reading. Recommended for fans of introspective literary fiction and those who appreciated Joyce’s earlier works like The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Thank you to NetGalley and The Dial Press for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on July 8, 2025.

Meh...it might be me. .
Maybe I am the common denominator in not being able to finish contemporary novels these days. I can't get behind all the family drama and it seems like 75% of contemporary drama have 0 plot...just a lot of harping on each other. This book is made it 25 % and could not even get behind a single character.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

I was invited by the publisher to review this book. Vic is a famous artist who has steadily relied on his four children since the death of their mother. Netta is the oldest, and therefore has been like a mother to her siblings, Susan is seemingly a housewife to both her husband and her father, Goose is a failed artist working in his father's studio, and Iris always has prioritized her father. Vic summons all of his children with the promise of big news, which turns out to be that he is re-marrying to Bella, an artist herself, but also decades younger than him. The siblings being upset prompts him to go to his Italian villa, where he dies a few weeks later, and the will suddenly cannot be found. This children head to Italy to piece together their dad's final days, which forces them to live in proximity to Bella, whom they also want to figure out.

I thought this was an especially atmospheric read, the settings of the villa and Italy captured very well within the pages, as well as pertaining to the tensions between the siblings and Bella - you could feel the heat in every respect. This is a greatly layered book incorporating identity and grief, with a fun backdrop of art mixed in. I also thought each sibling was written very distinctly, and I never got bored parsing through their details or dynamics. For not having any "thriller" elements to this book, the plot certainly moved at a pace that had me flying through this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group/The Dial Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

There is so much to like about The Handmade God. Rachel Joyce has a real talent for story telling that involves captivating characters and compelling plots. The very close Kemp family, headed by artist VIc, consists of four adult children—3 sisters and 1 brother. They are about as close as a family can be despite each being very, very different. When Vic meets a young woman, the troubles begin and test the family in ways they never imagined.

The fascinating family dynamics, the backdrop of the art world, and the underlying mystery make for a great read along with the atmosphere provided by the small town of Orta, Italy and their villa on the nearby island . It is beautifully written with truly memorable characters. A big thanks to NetGalley for an advance review copy.

This book was fascinating to me as I find the relationships between siblings to be so interesting!
I kept changing my opinion on some of the characters - they were all so flawed, which was
understandable considering their father. I thought the character development was done very well
and though I tried to have empathy for their pain, at times that was difficult for me (except with Goose) and I had a
hard time believing that they could just walk away from eachother with all the history they'd been through. It seems
it was all just a competition for their father's love!
I would recommend this book to others!

I loved two other books by the author, but I could not get into this one. The characters and drama didn’t draw me in or make me want to find out what would happen to them. However, this is a fantastic and talented author, so it’s worth checking out if you like her other books. Maybe what wasn’t for me right now will be for you!

This was a tough book to read because of the subject matter. A tale that brings to mind many of the Shakespearean tragedies you you are submerged amidst a dysfunctional family that seems as if it will never mend. A great summer read

Too wordy, repetitious, and unfulfilling. I loved "Harold Fry" so much and I had high hopes. Plus the ending was such a letdown, absolutely nonsensical, so I was altogether sad.

In this family saga, four adult siblings (Iris, Goose, Susan, and Netta) who were raised by their single father, a rather famous artist, learn that their father is going to marry a women similar in age to them, and wonder if she is trying to steal his fortune. The mysterious relationship between the father Vic and bride to be Bella Mae keeps the reader questioning Bella Mae's motives. When a horrible tragedy happens, the siblings and Bella Mae finally meet, just several weeks after their father's wedding (inexplicitly not being allowed to meet Bella Mae before the wedding and not being invited to the wedding). They all meet at their Italian island family summer home and this is really where the story begins. On the island, the siblings learn, maybe too much, about Bella Mae, their father, and each other. After a childhood of leaning on each other and always being there for each other, the cracks in the siblings' relationships come out, partly due to Bella Mae's probing. The siblings, who were extremely close before their visit to the island, separate and decide not to speak to each other for years due to what was said during those fateful weeks on the island. The story is about each of the siblings, how they relate to their father, and is about Bella Mae, who sees everything objectively but with motives that are unclear.
The story keeps you guessing until the very end, but the suspense is not the story. The story is the relationships that these siblings have with each other and their spouses, and learning that their father, who they doted on, was just as flawed as them. A really great read by Rachel Joyce. The only negative reaction I had was that despite the suspenseful events that kept me turning the page, when that was resolved, the story seemed to go on longer than necessary.

I chose this book because of the beautiful cover and intriguing title and this story delivered 100%. Set primarily at the family’s lake-side vacation home in Italy, the author creates a beautiful backdrop to witness the implosion of this family as they try to come to terms with the death of their larger-than-life father.

It explores siblings bonds, co-dependency, dysfunctional relationships, narcissistic traits, addiction, mental health, and the lengths people will go to, to be seen, loved and adored.

Rich in character development, power dynamics, and human psychology, this book will have you wishing the characters would stop their destructive behaviours, while at the same time, deeply understanding their need to go on personal journeys of growth and healing.

Highly recommend

It is a family reunion under the worse of circumstances: the father of the four siblings has died after recently marrying a much younger woman. Ok, that doesn't sound unique but you very quickly warm to the sibs and all their quirks, including romantic partners and near-partners. Did the wife deliberately cause her husband's untimely death? The novel's plot lines are genuine in terms of family strife and conflict and the group is collected at a family lake house in Italy that ordinarily sounds idyllic but turns into plenty of mysteries.. The plot evolves on each sib's flaws which mesh and mess together nicely. Each of five main characters wants to control the situation and place their own spin on things, and the plot offers several alternative facts that keep you guessing until a very strong ending. Highly recommended for mystery readers and general fiction too.

This is a masterpiece. It is both heartwarming and heartwrenching with happy moments and unbearably sad moments. It is written with such precision in the telling of what can tear a family apart and each person’s role within the family dynamic.

When Vic, the patriarch of the family, dies suddenly, it throws the Kemp family into chaos. Not only did Vic marry a much younger woman, he also went to Italy to complete his final painting, his masterpiece. When all the siblings convene in Italy, they have two goals - find their father’s will and his final painting. Of course, everyone wants to blame the new wife for the missing items, but what really happened?

Written with such precision and deftness, The Homemade God is superb. The characters have distinct personalities and the author does a fantastic job in all the subtleties of their lives. This is an easy 5-star read for me. Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the eARC.

The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce did not do it for me, but I can see her fans and other readers enjoying it. Famous artist Vic Kemp has spent his life pampered and adored by his four children, even though he was not the best father. When he announces a surprise marriage and disappears to their Italian island home, they do not know what to do. His sudden death creates chaos as they all descend on the home to await autopsy results and search for his missing masterpiece and will. Although Joyce creates some interesting characters and relationships, the book dragged and never actually went anywhere until the last 50 pages.

Thanks to Random House/The Dial Press for this ARC of 'The Homemade God' by Rachel Joyce.

Having read and loved 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry' some years ago I was intrigued to read 'The Homemade God.'

A grown-up family of three sisters and a brother congregate in an idyllic Italian lake setting to deal with the seemingly mysterious death of their recently-married (to a woman 45 years his junior) Jack Vettriano-like artist father - a man reviled by the art establishment but loved by the hoi polloi. Figuring out how he died and what happened to his final masterpiece fills the book and through that lens we find out about them and their lives.

This is one seriously dysfunctional family who, on the surface, appear to be high-functioning and all-loving. The siblings seem to be nothing, in their own minds and beings, without the father for reference. Their whole lives are lived anchored to him and how he treats them (badly). I don't deny that realities like this could exist but, honestly, the farther into the novel I red, the more pathetic they became. In any case, the artifice collapses as they learn more and more about him (and each other) from his new wife and his old friends.

Overall this is an enjoyable read but would've benefitted from some tightening up - the pudding was continually overegged. There was an entire short part of the book that was essentially a summarization of the bulk of the rest of the book - presented from a different perspective, sure, but seemed unnecessary. I think we'd all worked out the truth of things by that point.

Decent beach read.

An investigation of tenuous familial bonds and how relying on others to define ourselves ultimately holds us back. I enjoyed how this book allowed characters to be multifaceted and flawed while still maintaining that they were also soft and yearning for love and acceptance.

Set on the Italian waterfront during a heatwave, The Homemade God is basically inviting you to pack it in your suitcase for your summer vacation.

This is a story that shines when picking apart at its characters flaws. Where it struggles most is its pacing and that the characters are unlikable and hard to root for. The book sets itself up almost as a literary mystery but doesn’t feel particularly strong in either the literary or mystery vein. I did find myself continuing to find out about the elusive Bella-Mae but found that most of the storylines besides hers were ultimately uninteresting.

Adult siblings Netta, Susan, Gustav, and Iris gather together in Italy because their father has died. His death comes shortly after marrying a much younger woman. Is she to blame? Could the siblings done more to help their father? An exploration of life in general, life as siblings, and living ones own life. The story is slow paced but, still interesting enough. There is definitely something relatable in the threads that are woven throughout the book.

Many thanks to NetGalley for the gifted copy!
The Homemade God is a gentle, reflective read with lyrical writing and emotional undertones. While some parts moved a bit slowly, the exploration of belief and personal transformation was thoughtful and heartfelt. Not too bad—a decent 3-star read for fans of quiet, character-driven stories.