#BookReview ‘Trad Wife’ by Saratoga Schaefer

About the book ….

Published by Transworld Publishers on February 19th , 2026, huge thanks to the publishers for approving my request to read this disturbing and oddly redemptive take on modern motherhood, ‘Trad Wife’

Every trad wife needs a baby. Camille will get one – no matter the cost.

Camille lives to embody the perfect traditional wife―cooking, cleaning, homesteading, and documenting it all for her followers. But without a baby, her image―and her following―feels incomplete. As Camille’s husband begins to withdraw and his attention in her waning, Camille’s desperation deepens.

When Camille discovers a crumbling well hidden in the wheat field behind her new house, she is drawn to it, despite its proximity to an intimidating local forest. Unsure of what else to do, she makes a wish.

Soon, she’s haunted by vivid dreams she believes are divine. Then something visits her―something not quite angelic. Her belly swells unnaturally fast. Her cravings turn raw. And yet, her announcement goes viral.

But as Camille’s influence grows, so does the horror inside her. The life she always wanted is finally within reach… if it doesn’t consume her first…

Inevitably compared to ‘Rosemary’s Baby’, because of hello, horror plus pregnancy, I think , personally, this does a disservice to both books.

In the one, a woman is impregnated without consent, with the baby of the devil (sorry not sorry for the spoiler) , in the other, a woman in desperate need of validation created by a toxic social media movement, makes a bargain with something that is preternaturally different.

Camille has curated every aspect of her life- raised by a single father who successfully got her to abandon her scientific ambitions (not ladylike) and her general life goals to take care of him, she has stepped from being her father’s carer to being the babysitter of the most awful manchild of a husband in Graham.

He has the money, the status and the lack of interest in what his wife is doing to ignore the way this woman is obviously struggling, and to use her as a centerpiece to his ego’s need to feel he has ‘arrived’, with a wife that takes care of all his needs, without demanding anything in return.

Saratoga’s detailed itinerary of each day makes exhausting reading for the modern woman whether wife, mother, both or neither, as she spends each day setting about churning her own butter, removing colour from her life, trying to make the perfect Instagram post to catch the attention of uber Trad Wife, the improbably named, Mara Shoemaker.

In the absence of any affection or attention from Graham, which is screamingly obvious, but not to Camille, she spends every waking hour seeing to Graham’s needs, echoing the other ‘Trad Wives’ looking for the validation and sense that she has ‘made it’ from complete strangers on the internet.

This is achingly sad, I wanted to reach into the book, grab Camille out of there and look after her, she places such store on the angles, the lighting ,the colour scheme of each room in her house, that she does not realise she is in a prison.

The house she has had Graham move to, a remote , rural location with wheat fields and a wood at the end of their property is the perfect backdrop to the life she chooses to lead. As a peak feminist movement (I use this term sarcastically) the ‘trad wife’ uses her right to choose the way they live, as a so-called feminist reactionary decision.

Feminism means choosing the way your life is directed,and that includes finding self worth in the chores, and actions which millions of women have fought for so long to walk away from.

They are , in a sense, right, as they are making what is often considered the invisible labour of the woman in the household, visible to millions.

However, the big issue I have with it is that they make it looks ‘effortless’.

It lulls women like Camille into this false sense of what womanhood is, or isn’t, and places unattainable goals on pedestals they will never reach.

There is a complete disconnection between what Camille does on a daily basis to curate her lonely life, and what she finds effortless and wonderful from Mara.

She is so, so lonely, that when she is told not to go into the wheatfields or approach the woods, she ignores that warning of people being eaten and carried of by, something, no one seems to know quite what, but probably a bear, that thinking of the image of herself walking through the fields becomes more prescient than safety.

Coming across a well, she throws a penny that she carried out of her house down there, and makes a wish.

A baby, unconditional love, the apotheosis of womanhood, reproducing for her man.

Graham has to work away an awful lot more in order to manage her lifestyle expectations, and as such, finds himself ricocheting from her need for him to impregnate her, whilst wanting to ‘prove’ his manliness.

This is exacerbated by the fact Camille has moved so far away from Graham’s family that the mother in law control mechanisms, cannot successfully be conveyed via telephone lines.

The dreams, dark and disturbing come, an invitation to enter the house extended to an ancient, beastly creature escalates into a frenetic mating that is like nothing Camille has ever experienced .Yet she consents to it, believing this is her role, her need, to become a mother.

Soon enough, that pregnancy test comes back positive, her life should be complete, but as any horror fan knows, bargains made with otherworldly beings never come without a catch or two…

Contrasting the real and curated life of Camille with the closest woman in the nearby town is so sad and vulnerable-Camille needs a friend but puts all her energy into maintaining this online pretence whilst her would be friend, Renee, a mother herself, is desperately reaching out for friendship.

Renee feeds the relationship alright, just not in the way she had expected.

The baby grows inside Camille at an alarming rate and as Graham remains oblivious, Renee is being kept at arms length, so the ways in which Camille has to hide her rapidly advancing pregnancy and then baby , becomes increasingly challenging.

She finds that no matter how carefully she has painted her life, there is no angle which can hide what she, and her progeny are turning into.

An increasingly desperate situation calls for desperate measures, and when the only way she can turn is towards the creature who stalks her house and, their child, she realises that some stark choices need to be made.

This is a deeply moving, as well as horrific novel with truly stunning and original imagery that caught me off guard on many a page. The pressures which women, and society, place themselves under to play a role makes you so very vulnerable and in the effort to make everyone else happy, you can lose yourself.

One of my favourite scenes is when Renee brings over all her children’s baby clothes, and is taking them out to excitedly show Camille, and , as soon as she goes, Camille hides them all in the garage as they completely do not match her neutral aesthetic for the baby.

It broke my heart, as a mum of 5 daughters, we often had people hand down things to us and we were always so grateful because the giver would always be passing on not just clothes, but the hope that another mum could benefit, that another child might wear the favourite pieces which their child has grown out of .

It is about legacy, progeny, and being true to yourself,and whilst I would not say that a successful pregnancy and motherhood are the definition of modern womanhood, in this state I felt the most feral, protective and elementally natural I had ever been in my life. And I am so grateful that social media did not exist back then, it was hard enough engaging with real life schoolyard mums and their cliques , without the pervasive ‘should’ of multiple online platforms.

Genuinely horrifying and moving in equal measures , I found that the author has created something truly original and touching, with such a satisfying payoff that I was punching the air at the end.

More please!

About the author…

Saratoga Schaefer (they/them) is the USA Today Bestselling and Indie Press Bestselling author of vicious horrors and twisted thrillers.

Their books have been featured in Variety, People Magazine, Cosmopolitan, and Glamour, and their writing has appeared in Writer’s Digest, CrimeReads, and more. Originally from Brooklyn, Saratoga now lives upstate with several needy animals and a haunted clown table.

Links-https://saratogaschaefer.com/