The Homemade God

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

Family is everything, even when it falls apart.
Discover the brand-new novel from the multi-million-copy bestselling author.

AN INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER!

Family is everything, even when it falls apart: discover the brand-new novel from the multi-million-copy bestselling author. Perfect for fans of Ann Patchett and Maggie O'Farrell.

There is a heatwave across Europe.

Goose and his three sisters gather at the family's house by Lake Orta in Piedmont, Italy.

Their father, a famous artist, has recently remarried a much younger woman and decamped to Italy to finish his masterpiece. Now he is dead and there is no sign of a painting.

Although the siblings have always been close, as they search for answers over that summer, the things they learn - about themselves, their father and their new stepmother - will drive them apart before they can come to any kind of understanding of what their father's legacy truly is.

Extraordinarily compelling, at heart this is a novel about sibling relationships and those hairline cracks that can appear within a family: what what happens when they splinter, and what it would take to mend them.

Featuring an exclusive interview between Rachel Joyce and bestselling author, Sarah Winman. Listen to the end for a fascinating insight into their writing processes and their experiences of narrating their audiobooks.

'A sharp, absorbing and emotionally intelligent novel.' Guardian

‘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

'Joyce, who was an actor before she turned exclusively to writing, modulates her [tone] with immense delicacy. It’s impossible not to feel the comedy inherent in the siblings’ well-worn to and fro, nor the sorrow when their bonds begin to break down.' – Financial Times

©2025 Rachel Joyce (P)2025 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

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.

Sunday Times
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.
Guardian
A masterly and deeply satisfying exploration of art, grief and familial bonds.
Observer
Compulsive and darkly funny, Joyce’s books are a must-read for me and this did not disappoint.
Red Magazine
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.
Woman's Weekly
The Homemade God shares the characteristic generosity of Joyce's seven previous novels but there's something darker at play.
Harper's Bazaar
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

User Reviews

Book 4.0
Narration 4.5
5.0
5.0
An engrossing portrayal of the implosion, and eventually redemption, of the sibling relationships in a cult-like family dynamic dominated by a famous, narcissistic artist father. I also enjoyed the conversation at the end between two authors on their experience of narrating their own books.
jackdor 19/08/2025
3.0
4.0
longingforliterature 26/04/2025

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