Tantrum

In this electric horror novel from the author of The Insatiable Volt Sisters, an exhausted mother thinks her newborn might be a monster. She's right.

Thea's third pregnancy was her easiest. She wasn't consumed with anxiety about the baby. She wasn't convinced it was going to be born green, or have a third eye, or have tentacles sprouting from its torso. Thea was fine. Her baby would be fine.

But when the nurses handed Lucia to her, Thea just knew. Her baby girl was a monster. Not only was Lucia born with a full set of teeth and a devilish glint in her eye, but she's always hungry. Indiscriminately so. One day Lucia pointed at her baby brother, looked Thea dead in the eye and said, "I eat."

Thea doesn't know whether to be terrified or proud of her rapacious baby girl. And as Lucia starts growing faster and talking more, dark memories bubble to the surface--flashes from Thea's childhood that won't release their hooks from her heart. Lucia wants to eat the world. Thea might just let her.

Crackling with originality and dark humor, Rachel Eve Moulton's Tantrum is a provocative exploration of familial debt, duty, and the darker side of motherhood.

Author: Rachel Eve Moulton
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Published: 08/05/2025
Pages: 192
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.17lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.20w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780593854600


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 06/16/2025
Booklist 07/01/2025 pg. 38
Shelf Awareness 09/05/2025

About the Author
Rachel Eve Moulton earned her B.A. from Antioch College and her M.F.A. from Emerson College. Her work has appeared in Chicago Quarterly Review, Cream City Review, Bryant Literary Review, Narrative Magazine, Southwest Review, New Ohio Review, Button Eye Review, and The Bangalore Review among other publications. Her debut novel--Tinfoil Butterfly--was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and nominated for both a Shirley Jackson Award and a Bram Stoker. Her second novel--The Insatiable Volt Sisters--was named as one of the top ten horror novels of 2023 by the NYT Book Review. She's spent most of her life as an educator, writer, and editor. She lives with her husband and two daughters in the mountains east of Albuquerque.