Joyce has written a different type of book than others I have read - this being more of a mystery - but the book still has the beautiful writing and deep character development as the others. This is a book about adult children coping with their father's death and last unpredictable actions, and slowly unravelling as the whole left behind no longer holds them together. I loved the ending and Joyce's ability to write such real, flawed, beautiful people.

'A silence so broad and bright you could have taken giant strides through the middle.'

'Shirley had made a compressed shape with her mouth as if it were a freezer bag and she was zipping words inside.'

'It was the loneliest thing, the lying.'

'Death does not come in our own time. It does not check our diaries for a free window, or ask if this is a good moment.'

'You think love costs nothing?'

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

The tortured artist, sacrificing for his art, is one of the biggest cliches around, for good reason. History is rife with them. What Rachel Joyce has done with The Homemade God is very different, as the artist at the center of this novel is not the main character. Instead, as we learn from the first sentence in the book’s description, the artist has passed away, and his four adult children go to their summer home on Lake Orta in Italy to pick up the pieces, and to figure out what happened.

There is a mystery at the center of this story. The artist has been acting strangely during his final months in London. There was a new, young woman in his life. The kids were already worried. And then…his death. What unfolds is a complicated family drama about perception, about memory, and about the stories we tell ourselves and each other. It’s about how we stay connected, and how we come apart. It’s a fascinating look at the life and people surrounding one tortured artist in the days and months after his death, as they untangle the last days of his life.

This novel is not at all a traditional mystery, so do not expect it. But if you are interested in complicated families, in childhood trauma, and in processing grief, please consider picking up The Homemade God. The content can get heavy, but the characters are well-developed, the story is compelling, and the Italian lake setting feels right for summer.

Thanks to RandomHouse Publishing Group – Random House | The Dial Press, the author, and NetGalley for providing this copy of The Homemade God for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

In The Homemade God, Rachel Joyce vividly captures a scorching European summer as four siblings reunite at their family’s lake house, each carrying wounds and secrets inherited from their enigmatic father, a celebrated artist. With their father dead and his final masterpiece missing, the siblings are forced into close quarters, stirring long-buried tensions and challenging their bonds of family and forgiveness.
Joyce masterfully explores the complex web of sibling relationships—how they fracture and the fragile threads needed to mend them—against a richly atmospheric backdrop. The enigmatic presence of their stepmother adds an intriguing layer of suspense, prompting questions about trust, legacy, and the true meaning of family. As long-standing wounds resurface, the novel reveals that sometimes, understanding requires loss before connection can be restored.

The Homemade God is a compelling meditation on family, artistry, and what it takes to confront our pasts to move toward healing.

My first Rachel Joyce novel but definitely not my last. This was beautifully written and expertly executed. A fantastic cast of characters made it impossible to put this book down. Packed with secrets, lies and family ties. Really enjoyed it.
Thank you NetGalley, Rachel Joyce and The Dial Press for the opportunity to read and review this gem of a book.

I received a free DRC of this book through Netgalley. I have read several other books by Rachel Joyce. My favorite two have been [book:Miss Benson's Beetle|52674676] and [book:The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry|13227454] so I was very interested in reading this one. This current book really delves into family, siblings, and parents. 3 sisters and a brother grow up with their distracted painter father, Vic after their mother dies young. I don't think any of us escape childhood without parental trauma, but Vic really doesn't do a great job of raising his children on his own or with a slew of au pairs that he crosses boundaries with. There is a lot to unpack in this book so it has left me feeling a bit unsettled.

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.