Saratoga Schaefer’s 2026 horror novel, Trad Wife, satirizes the social media phenomenon of “traditional wives” (or tradwives) through the lens of supernatural body horror. The story follows Camille Deming, an influencer who meticulously curates her life online to fit the perfect homesteading aesthetic. Privately, however, her marriage to her husband, Graham, is strained, and her failed attempts to conceive a child threaten both her relationship and her growing social media brand. Desperate to achieve the one thing her tradwife persona lacks, Camille makes a wish for a baby at a mysterious, decrepit well on her remote country property, unleashing a monstrous force that grants her desire in a terrifying and unnatural way.

Trad Wife explores themes of The Cost of Performative Femininity, Motherhood as Monstrous Consumption, and The Isolation of Patriarchal Relationships. As Camille’s pregnancy progresses at a supernatural rate, she moves toward a primal, monstrous identity that stands in opposition to the pristine domesticity she once glorified. Schaefer is also the author of the 2025 thriller Serial Killer Support Group, which was a Barnes & Noble and Amazon Best Pick of the Month and was named one of the year’s biggest thrillers by Goodreads.

This guide refers to the 2026 first edition from Crooked Lane Books.

Content Warning: The source text and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, sexual content, sexual violence, gender discrimination, mental illness, cursing, death, animal death, self-harm, substance use, racism, and emotional abuse.

Plot Summary

Camille Deming, an influencer who posts about her #tradwife lifestyle, lives with her husband, Graham, in a remote country farmhouse. Her online persona, inspired by a popular tradwife influencer named Mara Shoemaker, centers on homemaking and her devotion to Graham, but Camille is privately tormented by her various failed attempts to conceive. She believes a baby is essential to saving her strained marriage and growing her social media following. After another negative pregnancy test, Camille feels Graham’s emotional and physical distance growing. Desperate, she discovers a decrepit well in the wheat field behind her house and makes a wish for a child. Shortly after, Camille begins experiencing unsettling dreams of a giant, winged eye on her ceiling that repeatedly asks why she wants a baby. These visions escalate when a gray-skinned, winged being with unnerving white eyes appears in her bedroom, causing her to faint in terror.

The day after the creature’s appearance, Graham leaves in the middle of the night to stay with a friend, causing Camille to suspect that he may be having an affair. Feeling abandoned, Camille concludes the creature is a biblical angel sent to grant her wish. When it appears again, she willingly has sex with it. The next morning, she vomits a large amount of blood and discovers she is suddenly, visibly pregnant with a baby that is already kicking. The pregnancy progresses at a supernatural rate, and Camille develops an insatiable craving for raw meat. She lies to Graham, telling him the child is his and that she is much further along than previously thought. To avoid seeing a real doctor who would discover the abnormalities of her pregnancy, Camille tells Graham that Renee Colt, their new neighbor and a bubbly and intrusive stay-at-home mom, is her midwife. As her belly grows, Camille’s physical health deteriorates; her hair thins, her skin turns gray, and she becomes gaunt. The creature from the well begins leaving dead wild animals, such as a hare, in her backyard, which she secretly devours at night to sate her unnatural hunger.

After only two months, Camille goes into a violent and excruciatingly painful labor alone in her house. The creature comes to assist with the birth, catching the baby as she is born and severing the umbilical cord with its teeth. Camille gives birth to a daughter, whom she names Sweetheart. The baby is born with the creature’s inhuman white eyes and grayish skin and is abnormally heavy. Sweetheart refuses formula, and Camille is unable to produce milk, leaving her increasingly panicked about how to feed her child. A few days after the birth, Sweetheart reveals a set of sharp, reptilian teeth and bites off two of Camille’s toes, drinking the blood and miraculously sealing the wound with her saliva. Camille realizes her daughter must feed on her flesh and blood to survive. She establishes a gruesome routine of cutting off pieces of her own body and letting Sweetheart drink from the wounds. One afternoon, Renee visits unannounced, picks Sweetheart up without permission, and is horrified to see her white eyes. Sweetheart attacks, sinking her teeth into Renee’s arm. To protect her daughter, Camille bludgeons Renee to death with a marble rolling pin.

Camille drags Renee’s body into the wheat field and allows Sweetheart to feast on the corpse for three days. The human meat causes Sweetheart to grow even more rapidly, and she quickly surpasses normal infant milestones. A police officer, Lipton, arrives to investigate Renee’s disappearance. Suspicious of Camille’s lies about Renee being a midwife, Lipton returns to the house alone under the pretense of looking for a lost pen. Sweetheart, who is now able to stand and speak the word “food,” attacks Lipton. Camille helps her daughter by holding the officer down as Sweetheart rips out his throat. Mother and daughter then feed on his body together. 

As Camille’s teeth sharpen into fangs and scales appear on her scalp, Graham becomes more distant and suspicious. Camille soon discovers Graham’s secret Instagram account and reads messages between him and a woman named Rose, confirming his affair and his unwillingness to recognize Sweetheart as his child. Graham confronts Camille, telling her he is seeking an annulment on the grounds that she is not the woman he married. Realizing she is about to lose her home and financial security, and fearing a custody battle, Camille lures Graham into the nursery to reveal Sweetheart’s true nature. When Graham reacts with horror, calling their daughter “unholy,” Camille smashes his head in with a lamp. She and Sweetheart then feast on his body. Afterward, Camille accesses the baby monitor’s recording of the event, edits a clip of herself waving at the camera while covered in gore, and posts it to her social media accounts with the caption, “Fuck you, Mara Shoemaker. #tradwife” (301). In the aftermath, she looks in the mirror and sees that her own eyes have turned completely white. Now fully transformed, Camille takes Sweetheart out to the well, where the creature is waiting. She sheds her clothes, marking the death of her former self, and feels her own heartbeat stop for the first time. The novel closes as Camille, the creature, and Sweetheart walk hand-in-hand into the forest to begin their new life as a family.