The Homemade God

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 *
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
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
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

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
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
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