Title: Yesteryear
Author: Caro Claire Burke
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Publication Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9781039057920
Synopsis:
A traditional American woman, a beautiful wife and mother who sells her pioneer lifestyle of raw milk and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of social media followers, suddenly awakens cold, filthy, and terrified 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.
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Wow, just wow! Yesteryear has been everywhere lately; it’s the book every one is talking about, and for good reason. I have never loved a book this much while simultaneously hating the protagonist with every fibre of my being. Natalie is a character of extremes in every aspect of her life, so far removed from my own reality that there was nothing I could connect with her on, yet I was completely hooked by her everything thought and action, hanging on her every word, much like the millions of Instagram followers she cultivates throughout this story.
Burke is a master at writing a character and a family that you love to hate. So much of this story is about the voyeuristic quality of social media—about watching and being watched, about constructing a life that the world gets to see until the lines between what’s real and what’s a fabrication are blurred. In a way, the reader, too, is a voyeur as they witness the rise and fall of Natalie, a traditional American wife and mother. She sucks the reader in with the idyllic life she constructs for herself, and keeps the reader on the hook as the threads of her life begin to unspool.
Natalie has nothing but judgement and hate for most of the people around her, as very few can live up to the devout Christian values that she strives to achieve. She holds herself above her peers, knowing that she will achieve a life as a good Christian wife and mother, bettering values in America and doing the work of the Lord to share those values with others. She holds disdain and pity for women who have lost their way, who do not strive for similar values. Her judgement grows as she builds her life, masking her unhappiness behind a mask of perfection. She finds vindication and validation by constructing her online persona, showing the world what a perfect wife and mother she is, luxuriating in the fact that the rest of the world desires to have what she has achieved.
This book is completely mind-bending, seeming to take the reader on a journey through time, without revealing (until the right moment) exactly how and why we see Natalie in both the present and a Nineteenth Century past. The ending is nothing like I theorized and it is both tragic and vindicating. As a whole, the story is a commentary on the polarization of ideals that is occurring in America, pitting family against family, ideal against ideal. There is no middle ground—no compromise—only vengeance, anger, jealousy, and a desire to prove oneself to be better than the other side. Through Natalie’s story, the reader witnesses the unravelling of it all—seeing the worst extremes of both success and failure as the great American family comes unravelled.
All of the hype surrounding Yesteryear is completely accurate and entirely called for. This book is incredibly thought-provoking and I expect will spark a lot of discussion. It’s this month’s read for my own book club and I can’t wait to dissect every chapter.
Happy reading!
Worn Pages and Ink 