Trad Wife – Sarah Langan

As you might have guessed from my review of Yesteryear last week, books about tradwife influencers are definitely the hot trend in 2026. Another has already worked its way to the top of my to-read stack: Trad Wife by Sarah Langan, kindly sent to me for review from my friends at Macmillan Australia.

This take on the subject is told from the point of view of a journalist, Jenny Kaplan. Jenny was recently ‘cancelled’ – and fired – for writing about her crazy ex-boyfriend (and the abortion she never told him about). She arrives at Black Swan Farm in the hopes of writing an exposé that will jump-start her stalled career. She’s sure that Mia Wright, the ‘trad wife’ du jour with a massive online following, is faking it for the camera.

Mia welcomes Jenny with open arms, but Jenny feels “as out of place as a cum stain in blue light” (page 62) in Mia’s pastoral dream life. The children are just too well-behaved, the husband too supportive, and from the moment Jenny’s head touches the pillow in the guest room she’s plagued by terrible nightmares. Then her hair starts falling out, the faint whiff of something rotting becomes an overpowering stench, and the evidence starts to pile up: something is wrong at Black Swan Farm.

Trad Wife is an eerie read, along the lines of The Other Black Girl or something from Grady Hendrix. But for all the slithering and slime, there’s a truly terrifying question driving this novel: why would a trad wife be so eager for an outspoken feminist to stay in her home, get to know her family, and tell her story to the world?

As the author says in her note to the reader, Trad Wife isn’t satire. It’s a horror novel.

(And a mild spoiler for fellow dog-lovers: you may worry, as I did, for the fate of Buddy, the beloved family dog. He comes through okay, despite missing a couple of meals.)

Read Trad Wife on audiobook via Libro.fm here. (affiliate link)