Description

By (author) Joyce Rachel

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

”It made me laugh, it made me cry and I couldn’t put it down. If you are a fan of Maggie O’Farrell you must read this.” – Louise Minchin, TV presenter and author of Isolation Island

”Rachel Joyce is a masterful storyteller.” – Sarah Winman, author of Still Life

‘The renowned artist – the emotionally starved children – what an inspired subject! Joyce writes with her trademark vitality and compassion and there is such colour here. So much at stake. I couldn’t put it down.’ – Esther Freud, author of Hideous Kinky and Mr Mac and Me

”Lyrical, shrewd and, ultimately, as indecently satisfying as a four course Italian lunch. My life is a little emptier now it”s over.” – Patrick Gale, author of A Place Called Winter

”Beautiful writing, unforgettable characters and stunning setting make this a must-read.” Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry

”Sparkling and addictive … Rachel Joyce is so incredibly good and wise on families and siblings. I couldn’t love it more.” – Harriet Evans, author of The Garden of Lost and Found

‘A triumph of insight and empathy!’ – Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures

”Joyce is a fearless explorer of emotional landscape.” – Sunday Times

”If only there were more novelists like Rachel Joyce” – Telegraph

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.

Review quote:
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.

Review quote:
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.

Review quote:
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.

Review quote:

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 wor