Turn Right At The Rainbow: A Diary of Househunting, Happenstance & Home
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
You don’t find home. Home finds you.
Roz has lived in her London house for thirty years. She arrived there bewildered and reckless, moving in with a man she'd known for one week, and the house kept asking: Are you sure? Do you belong here? Decades later, it’s the keeper of her history, her work and her life with Dave. But now they’ve decided to leave the city.
With sharp wit and genuine curiosity, Roz explores the deep resonance of place and memory: how a house is built on layers of happenstance, how it holds the ghosts of previous owners, and how we come to know it like our own limbs. From estate agents’ slippery tricks to the strange archaeology of attics, from the sounds that tell us we’re home to the leap of faith required to start again somewhere new, this is a book about stuff and nonsense, love and junk, the old kingdom and the new —and the ways our homes shape us as much as we shape them.
By turns hilarious and unexpectedly moving, Turn Right At The Rainbow is creative non‑fiction that reads like a novel. It’s for readers of memoir who crave heart as much as humour, as well as those who scroll property listings just for nosiness. Above all, it’s a quest for the miraculous moment when somewhere alien becomes ‘home’.
Roz Morris is an award-winning novelist whose work explores identity, imagination and the places that make us. She has sold 4 million books as a ghostwriter, teaches masterclasses for The Guardian and has helped thousands of writers through her Nail Your Novel books.
Reviews
OMG, this is such a lovely book. Now, I don't usually read non-fiction (yes, I know, I just read and reviewed a biography), but I've already read another non-fiction book by Morris, as well as a fiction book by her, so I knew that I loved her writing. When I heard she was releasing a new one, I was thrilled that she offered me an ARC. I cannot tell you how much fun this book is, and funny. I mean, really laugh out loud, until you brought to tears funny!
Turn Right at the Rainbow is Roz Morris’s latest memoir, subtitled “A Diary of Househunting, Happenstance & Home”, and it’s an absolute joy to read. I volunteered to read an advance review copy, and I’m so glad I did! Anyone who has ever looked for somewhere to live will smile and groan as the book leads you to places unexpectedly tender, funny and quietly profound. From the first chapter, Roz’s warmth and wit makes even the most chaotic house‑hunting misadventure feel like a moment worth savouring. One of Roz’s many talents is her emotional precision: she captures the strange state of searching for a home – a mix of hope, despair, exhaustion, superstition and stubborn optimism – and combines it with wonderful observational details: small, throwaway moments that become the emotional architecture of the book. There’s also a beautiful rhythm to the storytelling. Scenes unfold with a cinematic clarity, but the real magic is in the quiet beats that reveal just how much heart sits beneath the humour. Roz demonstrates perfectly that the search for a house is never just about bricks and mortar; it’s about identity, belonging and the stories we tell ourselves about the lives we hope to build. This is a book for anyone who has ever chased a dream or stood in a doorway and wondered whether this might finally be “the one”. Warm and witty, Turn Right at the Rainbow is a genuine pleasure to read.
'Poignant and charming... few books pull me along in a single sitting. I devoured this in one long train journey.'
