By Tia Levings: A Well-Trained Wife

NYT Bestseller

Audible Canada Best of Year 2024

Goodreads Readers Choice Award finalist

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ABOUT THE BOOK

“Recruited into the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement as a young wife, Tia Levings learned that being a good Christian meant following a list of additional life principles––a series of secret, special rules to obey. Being a godly and submissive wife in Christian Patriarchy included strict discipline, isolation, and an alternative lifestyle that appeared wholesome to outsiders. Women were to be silent, “keepers of the home.”

Tia knew that to their neighbors her family was strange, but she also couldn’t risk exposing their secret lifestyle to police, doctors, teachers, or anyone outside of their church. Christians were called in scripture to be “in the world, not of it.” So, she hid in plain sight as years of abuse and pain followed. When Tia realized she was the only one who could protect her children from becoming the next generation of patriarchal men and submissive women, she began to resist and question how they lived. But in the patriarchy, a woman with opinions is in danger, and eventually, Tia faced an urgent and extreme choice: stay and face dire consequences or flee with her children.

Told in a beautiful, honest, and sometimes harrowing voice, A Well-Trained Wife is an unforgettable and timely memoir about a woman’s race to save herself and her family and details the ways that extreme views can manifest in a marriage.

Christian Fundamentalists want to run the country the way they run their homes. Do you know what that means?

High-control religion is not only reshaping our families. They’re also changing our politics, laws, and elections. And what many don’t realize is that Christian fundamentalists want to govern our country the way they govern their homes. No one knows that as well as the wives and children of the patriarchs––but these citizens of fundamentalism aren’t allowed to speak. And the agenda of the Evangelical Patriarchy is surging ahead by aligning itself with Nationalism.

Have you:

  • watched your loved ones sink further into high-control religion and felt powerless to help them?
  • had experiences at church that feel traumatic?
  • struggled to overcome the grooming and training of a religious childhood that doesn’t serve you now?
  • felt triggered by headlines and cultural news but can’t understand why?
  • felt distressed at the changes happening in America and wondered how are we going backward?

I can help.

ABOUT ME

New York Times Bestselling author Tia Levings. A woman with long red hair stands smiling near a river in a brown shirt

HI, I’M TIA LEVINGS, the New York Times Bestselling author of A Well-Trained Wife, my memoir of escape from Christian Patriarchy. I spotlight the realities of Christian fundamentalism, evangelical patriarchy, and religious trauma. My work appears in Teen Vogue, Salon, the Huffington Post, and Newsweek. My story was featured in the hit Amazon docu-series Shiny Happy People. Based in North Carolina, I’m a mom to four incredible adults and like to travel, hike, paint, and daydream. My second book, The Soul of Healing, will be released with St. Martin’s Essentials in 2026.

Welcome to my work.
I’m so glad you’re here.

I’m represented by Trinity McFadden at The Bindery Agency and Macmillan Speakers. My publicist is Katie Bassel.

Tia’s One Sheet

I escaped high-control religion, healed from religious trauma, and now share the realities of what it’s really like living in the Christian Fundamentalism influencing our culture and headlines today. I believe the Christian patriarchy wants to run our country the way they run their homes ––which is why it’s so important we understand how they live.

As a Christian Fundamentalist guest expert, I bring the human context and real-life perspective to news and human-interest stories related to:

  • anti-abortion bills
  • book bans
  • travel restrictions for women
  • religious freedom
  • gender roles and definitions
  • High-control religious groups
  • evangelical Christian cults
  • traditional lifestyles (aka “trad”)
  • anti-feminist conservatism

I’m available as a guest expert on your podcast or news segment, interview, and research source, and as a fundie SME for your film or book project. Email my team for consulting and interview inquiries.

I believe knowledge is power. And I can tell you what the Christian Patriarchy doesn’t want you to know.

Because I was one of them, once––a woman who chose against herself to perpetuate their system. When I was excommunicated and shunned and then escaped the violence with my life and my children, I made myself a promise:

I’d tell my story one day. I’d tell as many who would listen what it’s really like to live in fundamentalism.

Because stories like mine offer insight into where America is heading.

Life as a Quiverfull fundie wife, submissive and sweet, required a lot of work, a dress code, and more.
Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm is today’s most influential Trad wife. However, the lifestyle and motives are the same as always.

Fundies (a shortened nickname for “Fundamentalist”) keep women busy having and caring for babies. She’s a “keeper of the home.” If her world is small and simple, the rest of their governing goals will fall into place without her opposition. As a Trad fundie wife, I wasn’t allowed to vote, drive, or spend without permission. I couldn’t say no, use birth control, or get a divorce. Sharing my story proves what I never knew when locked inside: I was not alone.

Along with books like Uncultured, Educated, Cultish, and Jesus and John Wayne, cult-exposing content is popular. Dissent: The Radicalization of the Republican Party and The Making of Biblical Womanhood; cult documentaries like The Cult Next Door, The Way Down, Join Us, Lula Rich and Shiny Happy People; movies like Jesus Camp, and the startling near-future of The Handmaid’s Tale, are giving American audiences pause about what kind of Christians live next door. 

I open that door. My work reveals what it’s like inside a fundy home––reality without the aesthetic wash of Ballerina Farm’s gloss. But I made it out of that life. I’m committed to growth, empowerment, and connection. I don’t want to stop at just surviving trauma…I believe we are to thrive.

Your story matters to me

It’s agonizing to watch a loved one descend into a cult. To see our country restrict hard-fought freedoms and move backward in time. But that’s by design.

The messages flood my inbox and social media: 

  • “I was raised this way too. I’m the oldest of 13 and I was their second mom from the time I was 9.”
  • “My parents spanked me until I was eighteen.”
  • “My mom died when I was 16. I’ve always thought it was from exhaustion. She had 12 kids in 12 years.”
  • “I was horrified when TLC put the Duggars on TV. That was my life! Set to cheerful music with a gaslighting narrator!”
  • “I always thought there was something off with that show. You’re helping me understand why.”
  • “I have a close family member caught up in a church like that. You’re helping me see why they’re under so much control.”

If you’re healing from religious trauma, welcome. I believe you can heal to wholeness and reclaim your present and future. I’m sharing my journey in THE SOUL OF HEALING: A Survivor’s Guide to Recovery from Relgious Trauma, out with St. Martin’s Essentials 2026.