From the publisher:
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A GMA BOOK CLUB PICK • A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (SO FAR) • A traditional American woman, a “tradwife” influencer, suddenly awakens in the brutal reality of 1855—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.
My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.
Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it.
Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.
A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.“Mesmerizing… An ingenious, exquisite, be-careful-what-you-wish-for… In Burke’s biting prose, Natalie is an electric antiheroine… Revelatory… Yesteryear draws to a dizzying conclusion.” –Michelle Ruiz, The New York Times Book Review
“One of the year’s most relentlessly fast-paced and satisfying novels, a sharp and witty social satire that also works as a taut thriller and a vexing work of speculation… Unusually ambitious for a debut novel and also uncannily astute about the complicated, contradictory times in which we live.” –Kate Tuttle, Boston Globe“Burke captures much of the zeitgeist in Natalie’s increasingly delusional, overall disturbing state of mind in both time periods—and in other characters’ collisions with it. The seductive topic, unreliable narrator, and surprisingly creepy vibes are sure to draw readers in and keep them guessing.” —Booklist (starred review)
https://bookshop.org/a/123058/9780593804216
“Readers won’t be able to look away. . . . Captivating.” –Library Journal
Talk about a premise that sells itself. Yesteryear is the kind of high-concept idea that gets snapped up in a bidding war before the ink is dry — and sure enough, Anne Hathaway’s production company attached itself early. That’s both the best and worst thing that happened to this book.
The premise of Yesteryear immediately grabbed me. A glamorous tradwife influencer with millions of followers wakes up one morning to find herself living an actual pioneer life in 1805? I was completely sold.
Natalie Heller Mills has built an empire around the illusion of the perfect traditional life. Her social media is filled with homemade bread, farm chores, a handsome husband, and six children living the dream on an Idaho ranch. What her followers don’t see are the nannies, production crew, expensive appliances, and carefully curated performances that keep the fantasy alive.
Then Natalie wakes up to discover she’s no longer playing pioneer—she’s living it.
Gone are the modern comforts, electricity, running water, and social media. Instead, she’s hauling firewood, washing clothes by hand, caring for her own children, and trying to survive the brutal realities of frontier life alongside a far rougher version of her husband. At first, I assumed this was going to be an entertaining blend of historical fiction, magical realism, and fish-out-of-water comedy.
It isn’t.
About halfway through, the novel takes a turn I never saw coming. I won’t spoil it, but the back half is where opinions split. Once the twist lands — and it’s a doozy, one that pulls hard from real-life headlines — the book shifts from satire into something darker and stranger. Some readers will find it a gut-punch that recontextualizes everything; others will feel the movie studio-committee fingerprints start to show, like the sharper political edges got sanded down along the way.
What follows is a sharp, unsettling exploration of influencer culture, religious extremism, gender roles, political polarization, and the dangerous gap between the lives people project online and the truth behind closed doors. Natalie is a fascinating narrator because she’s deeply flawed. She’s narcissistic, judgmental, desperate to be seen as morally superior, and often profoundly unlikeable. Yet Burke makes her understandable, if not sympathetic, showing how her upbringing, beliefs, and need for validation shaped the person she’s become.
I didn’t particularly like most of the characters, and I think that was intentional. Caleb is frustratingly passive, his family is manipulative, and nearly everyone seems trapped by expectations they either embrace or resent. Despite that, I couldn’t stop reading.
Yesteryear is darkly funny, wildly ambitious, and guaranteed to spark conversation. It’s part psychological thriller, part social satire, and part character study, wrapped inside a premise that’s impossible to resist. The final twist is shocking, emotionally devastating, and lingered with me long after I finished.
Provocative, unsettling, and completely unforgettable, this is one of those books people will be talking about all year. If you are in a book group, you won’t want to miss this one.
7/2026 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch
YESTERYEAR by Caro Claire Burke. Knopf. (April 7, 2026). ISBN: 978-0593804216. 400p.
Posted by Stacy Alesi 
Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™ 