{ "item_title" : "Yesteryear", "item_author" : [" Caro Claire Burke "], "item_description" : "A GMA BOOK CLUB PICK 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.A bold and biting satire, Yesteryear…will have you cackling and gasping right to the final page. —Nita Prose, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid seriesMy 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.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers1.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/59/380/421/059380421X_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "30.00", "online_price" : "24.50", "our_price" : "24.50", "club_price" : "18.00", "savings_pct" : "18", "savings_amt" : "5.50", "club_savings_pct" : "40", "club_savings_amt" : "12.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "21.00" } }

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What happens when an influencer who touts the benefits of a traditional lifestyle has to actually live in the past? That’s the tantalizing premise of Caro Claire Burke’s debut novel, Yesteryear, a provocative portrayal of gender dynamics in the 21st century. Natalie Heller Mills has more than 8 million followers on social media, and they look to her for homemaking advice. If she can homeschool six children, serve milk fresh from a cow and bake her own bread, surely it’s possible for anyone? Of course, behind the scenes, nannies, producers, top-of-the-line appliances and grocery stores are the real heroes of the Millses’ enchanted-seeming existence, and Natalie’s husband digs up more rocks in the fields than potatoes. Still, appearances are what matter, and Natalie has that on lock. But everything changes when Natalie wakes up one morning in an actual pioneer-era life, with nary a cell phone to be seen. What is going on, and how can she get back? Burke, a co-host of the podcast Diabolical Lies, packs more ideas and themes into Yesteryear than can be fully explored in one novel, and readers are bound to be divided on the effectiveness of the ending. But it’s pretty much impossible not to be bewitched and bewildered by the novel’s complicated main character. Natalie may be unlikable, but in Burke’s bleak outline of the options for modern womanhood, many of her choices are understandable. Yesteryear is an entertaining and unpredictable debut that readers will yearn to discuss.

Read our Q&A with Caro Claire Burke about 'Yesteryear.'