The Homemade God is a beautifully written portrait of an imperfect family. The characters are so relatable, even when they are unlikeable. I loved reading this one.

It’s just me and my need to read siblings stories to fill that void of being an only child agains the world.

This story feels at the beginning like a mystery about finding the last painting of Vic Kemp before he passes away but it turns in a discovering of secrets and personal traumas of each of his children, who have been living with this pain and shame of being kids of a supposed artist, waiting for his approval, needing it before anything else, and then maybe finding out he wasn’t as perfect as they thought he was, as every kid thinks of their parents at some point. And maybe those secrets will be the point of break for these siblings relationships. Or maybe not?

I loved the way it was written, the scenery felt very summery and mysterious with a whimsical tone, very entertaining.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

“The Homemade God” by Rachel Joyce tells the stories of four siblings who are shocked when their world-famous artist father, who suddenly married a woman decades younger than him, dies at their family home on a lake in Italy. They believe their father’s wife had ulterior motives for marring a man so much older than her, but does she?

This story, of a dysfunctional family was pretty slow going for me and it took me a long time to get into the story, and by the end, I really didn’t care much about any of the characters at all.

Many thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for an ARC of this book. My opinions are my own.

I found the premise of this book very appealing—I love family drama, books set in Italy, and characters who are artists. However, to me this story lacked cohesion and a real direction. There were some interesting scenes, but I spent too much time wondering why I should care about these characters (who are largely unlikeable). The ending did redeem the story, but overall it was just too much of a downer for me. Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to provide an honest review.

This was a great read by Rachel Joyce. It makes me want to read more of her books. It's an unusual plot of four adultsisters, their much older father (who is a famous painter), and his new young wife, Bella -Mae. The action takes place on an island in Italy, where the family spent much time growing up. The four sisters suspect the young wife when their father mysteriously turns up dead and his last painting is missing.

Rachel Joyce has created a unique story with complex characters and a riveting story. The Kemp children are raised by their eccentric artist father after their mother dies. They were taken aback by his announcement that he was marrying this young woman, and each of the four adult children responded in a way that acted out their issues from having growing up without a mother. The father’s death brings out rifts between the adult children and drew me further into the story. I have read many of Joyce’s books and enjoy her often eccentric characters and plots. Kudos to Rachel Joyce for another entertaining read.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC provided and to Random House and The Dial Press.

Thank you Dial Press!
Thank you Dial Press for the review copy on NetGalley! Perfect for readers who enjoy layered storytelling, sibling dynamics, and slow-burning tension, this intimate and atmospheric book lingers long after the last page.

The Homemade God is a beautifully written, character-driven family saga set against the vivid backdrop of an Italian island, where four siblings come back together after their father’s death.

What begins as a sad and bittersweet gathering quickly unravels into a gripping tale of grief, long-suppressed secrets, and simmering resentment (here for the sibling stuff, always), heightened by the father's other relationships and lifestyle. Joyce crafts well drawn, complex, deeply human characters whose flaws and loyalties collide until you get to an intense, if expected and a bit messy, conclusion. The novel excels in its exploration of memory, identity, and the fragility of family ties, these are all themes that if you know me, you know I will always love.

This was my first Rachel Joyce book but won't be my last. I thoroughly enjoyed The Homemade God's difficult subject matter as novels shouldn't all contain sunshine and roses.

Vic Kemp's idiosyncrasies and parenting style are put on display. After his children are invited to meet his new love and see his grandest artwork, a history of dysfunction implodes and causes a deeper schism amongst the siblings. I would recommend this impressive read for anyone who enjoys sibling rivalry, May-December romances, and mysteries.

Thank you NetGalley and The Dial Press for allowing me to read this galley.

A brother is sending invites to his sisters, invites he's telling us they will say yes to but not attend in the end. He's reminiscing about the "summer they wore flip-flops", a hot summer in Europe, describing the three sisters perfectly. In that prologue, they already have distinct mannerisms and personality traits. It's a great setup to this novel.

We go back to when the siblings meet at their father's request. He's excited to tell them something. They adore him, they dote on him, he's an artist of some renown, his medium oil painting. Seems that their seventy-six-year-old father is in love....with a twenty-seven-year-old artist named Bella-Mae. The kids are all in their thirties. They have opinions on this mysterious, hyphenated woman, and they're mostly not good ones.

Fast forward a few months and Bella-Mae and their dad are holed up at the family villa on a lake in Italy. He's working on his "masterpiece" and taking his daily swims. There's an emergency and the siblings are called to Italy, where most of the action takes place.

The story propels forward in unexpected ways. I thought it was going in one direction and it veered towards another. The focus of the story even seemed to change, in a trojan horse kind of way. I liked the strong and distinct personalities of each of the siblings, the way they worshiped their father, the dynamics once they meet Bella-Mae. It was mysterious, atmospheric, and also very funny: "he wore a Rolex the size of a yo-yo", It was emotional as each one reconciles their own memories of their father.

My thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Random House | The Dial Press for the Advance Reader Copy. (pub. date 7/8/2025)

I was excited to pick up this book while on vacation in Italy, as it was set there. It also has complicated family dynamics when 4 siblings gather together following the death of their father. The characters felt very real and complex - they were messy and very human.

I really liked this authors other work but this story I just couldn’t get into as much. The story is about 4 siblings whose mother died at a young age, leaving their artist father to raise them himself. At the age of 76 their father announces he is going to marry a women very much his junior and he wants all of them to come to Italy to celebrate. When their father dies unexpectedly the four siblings suspect his new wife.

The story is very detailed and does a good job describing Italy. The problem for me was the story dragged by going into a lot of descriptions ( some felt repetitive) of the siblings and what they thought of their father.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the publishers for allowing me to read this advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Delighted to include this title in the July edition of Novel Encounters, my column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction for the Books section of Zoomer, Canada’s national lifestyle and culture magazine. (see column and mini-review at link)

The Homemade God is a quietly powerful meditation on grief, belief, and the strange, sacred rituals we create to survive loss. Rachel Joyce delivers yet another masterful novel that blends emotional sensitivity with unexpected humor, inviting readers into the fractured world of a woman reeling after unimaginable tragedy.

At the heart of this novel is Norah, a mother isolated not just by her pain, but by the way the world insists she move past it. In the ruins of her ordinary life, she begins to construct a deeply personal and unconventional belief system—a “homemade god”—to help her make sense of what feels senseless. It’s an unusual premise, but Joyce treats it with compassion and reverence, never mocking, always exploring.

The writing is lyrical but grounded. Joyce has a gift for capturing the absurdity of everyday moments, even in the midst of sorrow. Norah’s journey is filled with small, strange encounters—neighbors, strangers, unexpected allies—all of which slowly guide her back to herself. The result is not a sweeping epic, but a deeply intimate, finely observed character study.

Some readers may find the pacing slow, especially in the middle third, but the payoff is worth it. This is a book that demands reflection, not momentum. The narrative quietly builds to a resolution that is both emotionally satisfying and thematically resonant.

Recommended for: Readers who appreciate introspective, character-driven fiction that wrestles with big existential questions. Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Strout, Anne Tyler, or Joyce’s own The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.

Rachel Joyce has written THE book of Summer 2025, if you ask me.

The Homemade God is atmospheric and gorgeously written, dropping the reader in a hot, Italian summer. A septuagenarian artist and father of four calls his children home to tell them some big news. They could never have imagined that the news was his marriage to a woman in her twenties. Departing for Italy, Vic and his new wife, leave the Kemp children in shock. Only to find out weeks later that their father has passed away.

Lush prose and amazingly taut family dynamics fill the pages of the Homemade God. I never wanted to put it down and read it in a couple of sittings. An excellent pick for those who like their summer reading to have a bit more emotional heft.

I really really wanted to love this - and maybe my expectations were too high - but it just did not work for me. It felt chaotic, but also slow moving. There were too many characters that were not developed well, in my opinion, but other characters that were perfect. It felt disjointed at times, the story just did not flow as smoothly as I would want. However, the family drama was incredibly well done. The descriptions in the book were so amazing that I could vividly picture everything in my mind. The emotions were felt strongly in this book - anger, love, resentment, frustration and more. This is a highly dysfunctional family, with a horrible father, yet despite it all, the siblings are all in touch all the time. I think that if you go into this looking for family drama and dynamics, this one will serve it all on a silver platter. If you want a faster moving storyline, with some mystery and deception thrown in, this one may not be for you. Overall, I had very mixed feelings about this one - if you have read it (or plan to read it!) let me know your thoughts!
Thank you netgalley for my advanced reader copy.

This story surrounding brother and sisters uniting at an island villa that evokes memories of childhood and their artist father. There is the mystery of a much younger wife on the scene that throws these siblings off balance as they hold their secrets close. I appreciated the closeness of the familial tight knit group and their quest to find their father's final painting and the circumstances surrounding his death. The bit of suspense builds as the story progresses. There is a dramatic turning point that is informative and scathing as it is fueled by liquor. The dialogue flows as things erupt. The third part of the book is a flash forward and is a bit awkward. It could've ended a few chapters early and been quite satisfying. However. a final chapter seems with out a proper segue way and it ends awkwardly.

Copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley

Thank you Random House and NetGalley for the ARC!

This book snuck up on me. I was unsure at first, but the compelling nature of the story, the characters and the mystery really had me hooked. I found the characters (the siblings mainly) to be frustrating but overwhelmingly human in their errors. My one gripe was that it took almost half the book to advance the plot to meet. Bella Mae.

Thank you again for the ARC!

A slow-burning, atmospheric portrait of family fracture.

Set against the searing heat of an Italian summer, "The Homemade God" is a slow-burning, emotionally rich character study of a family unraveling in the wake of loss. Author Rachel Joyce crafts a vivid, melancholic atmosphere as four adult siblings reunite at their late father’s lake house, trying to understand not only his death, but the emotional legacy he left behind - one shaped by absence, art, and unresolved wounds.

Vic, their father, was a celebrated painter but a complicated and often cruel parent. His sudden remarriage to a much younger woman, followed by a hasty move to Italy and then his mysterious death, leaves the siblings reeling. The disappearance of his final painting and the presence of his enigmatic widow only deepen the sense of suspicion and tension that permeates the summer.

Joyce excels at giving each sibling a distinct emotional arc. Though they once shared a close bond, time and trauma have chipped away at their unity, and as secrets surface, the cracks between them deepen. I found myself most drawn to Netta, a pragmatic lawyer whose skepticism about her father's death and the missing will mirrored my own questions while reading. Her perspective felt grounded and relatable as she tried to impose order on an inherently chaotic situation.

What initially reads like a mystery - did Vic's new wife manipulate him? Is she even who she claims to be? Where is the painting? - slowly reveals itself to be more of a psychological and emotional exploration. The ultimate resolution of what happened surprised me in a satisfying way, bringing depth to what could have been a more conventional family drama.

Though the narrative tells you from the beginning that the siblings will fall apart by summer’s end, Joyce makes the unraveling feel genuinely tragic. I found myself unexpectedly devastated as their shared history buckled under the weight of grief, resentment, and long-suppressed truths.

If I had one reservation, it was the novel’s characters implicit and unquestioning reverence for Vic - a man whose talent as an artist seemed to excuse, or at least eclipse, his emotional failings as a father. I personally struggled to understand the degree of hero worship surrounding him, which made some of the characters’ loyalty and grief harder to connect with.

Still, "The Homemade God" is a beautifully written, lush, layered, and deeply human novel, exploring memory, identity, and the way families fracture - and sometimes, unexpectedly, try to mend. A haunting, intimate book perfect for readers who love character-driven stories laced with slow-building tension and emotional weight.

Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group - Random House | The Dial Press for the copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

"The Homemade God" was published on July 8, 2025, and is available now.

The Homemade God is a character-driven family saga. Getting to know this family was intriguing. I found the setting to be so descriptive and vivid, it was almost like another character. I found this to be a memorable read.

I received this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. ARC provided by Random House and The Dial Press.

Family is everything, even when it falls apart.

After the sudden death of a renowned artist, his four adult children travel to Italy to sort out his affairs with his much-younger wife.

World-famous artist Vic Kemp has relied on his four children ever since their mother died when they were young. Netta, the oldest, is a litigator who often serves as co-parent to her siblings; Susan, a housewife who cooks and cleans for both her husband and her father; Goose's own thwarted artistic ambitions have left him resigned to a job in Vic's studio; and Iris, the baby, drops everything the moment her father calls.

When Vic summons the siblings with the promise of big news, they hope their father is about to tell them he has finished the mysterious masterpiece he claims will be the capstone to his career. Instead, he announces he is getting remarried. Bella-Mae, his wife to be, is apparently beautiful, a fellow artist—and twenty-seven to his seventy-six years. When his children dare to express concern, Vic decamps with Bella-Mae to his summer home in Italy. Six weeks later, he is found dead. There is no sign of his will, or his promised final painting.

Netta, Susan, Goose, and Iris gather at the house on Lake Orta to piece together what happened and prepare to bring their father’s body home. They spend the summer in a waiting game, living under the same roof as Bella-Mae, and forced to confront Vic's legacy and the buried wounds they have incurred as his children. So who is Bella-Mae? Is she the woman their father believed her to be? Or is she the force that will destroy the family for good? How long can their old bonds hold?

The Homemade God explores memory, identity, grief, healing, and the bonds of siblinghood—what happens when they splinter, and what it might take to find a new way forward. It is a very slow-burn, character-driven story, and the premise was certainly a good one. I loved that it was set in Italy. The characters, with all of their flaws, are carefully crafted. They do test your patience at times. But some parts of the book was overly descriptive on parts which you do not need, and then there are places that were lacking description. The pacing is quite slow and the story felt drawn out at times. It was definitely more character driven than a mystery. Overall, it was a good family drama and the toxic and complicated relationships that comprise a dysfunctional family was done very well. So if you love books about dysfunctional families, this one will be for you.

This book exceeded my expectations; it was such an amazing story, and the characters were so memorable. I was totally engaged throughout the entire novel.
The book was full of vivid descriptions and vivid imagery to the point where I felt like I had slipped into the pages.