The Homemade God

 Artist Vic Kemp announces to his four adult children that he's getting married to a much younger woman named Bella-Mae who he met online six weeks earlier. That’s how The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce begins.

This news shocks the Kemp siblings since Vic has always been opposed to the institution of marriage. They have a lot of questions like what changed his mind about getting married and is Bella-Mae pushing him to do this. In the meantime, Vic is supposedly working on a major work of art that would be his masterpiece at his advanced age. However, the children wondered whether this was actually happening since Bella-Mae came into his life.

Bella-Mae raised their suspicions from the beginning. She made excuses not to meet the rest of the kemp family. Bella-Mae is an internet influencer. How much influence does she have on their father, they asked themselves. It seemed that Bella-Mae was taking over Vic’s entire life, and yet she remained quite a mystery to all of them.

After Vic marries Bella-Mae – a wedding his children aren’t invited to - he disappears from their lives. That’s when they received word that their father is dead from a drowning accident. What comes next for the Kemp siblings is a lot of chaos and confusion regarding the last weeks and days of Vic’s life, the actual drowning itself and what was to follow. There's also the matter of the painting he was working on at the time of his death. What happened to that? The stress of it all is causing the close-knit Kemps to turn on each other at a critical time when they should be banding together.

Going deeper into the story and as more jaw-dropping, family secrets are revealed, I form theories and guesses about what is really going on here. It’s that kind of a book.

The Homemade God is a wonderfully written novel with well thought-out characters who make this story come alive. Each Kemp child has their own unique backstory and distinct personality that blend well together to create an engrossing narrative that shouldn’t be missed by anyone who loves mysteries wrapped up in family drama.

This may or may not be the last Maria's Book Banter post of 2025. It’s hard to say at this point. If it is, I wish you a Joy-filled holiday season and all the best for 2026.

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