Why Yesteryear is the Most Talked-About Book of 2026

This mind-bending suspense novel taps into our modern-day influencer culture before catapulting us back in time. The main character, Natalie Heller Mills, is a “tradwife” (a subculture of women who promote traditional, outdated gender roles), a mother from a young age, and an influencer, keen to portray her polished life through a social media career. Natalie’s husband, Caleb, a man with simple desires who dreams of being a kindergarten teacher, lives with her on a ranch called—yes—the Yesteryear ranch, where their huge brood of homeschooled children embrace Christian ideas and farm life.

Everything changes when Natalie wakes up in 1855, away from her contemporary comforts—including two nannies and her personal videographer—confronted with a new life and a mystery to unfurl. The book taps into themes such as motherhood, faith, online personas, mental health, patriarchal values, and “traditional” belief systems, presented with a dark, macabre humor. Not to mention a main character who is... not exactly reliable.

Be mindful of spoilers below if you haven’t read it yet.

Is Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear one of the best books of 2026, or the most divisive?

The book has successfully sparked endless conversations within the literary world. Find out what The Novelry team thought of the year’s most talked-about book, as we dig into the main character’s likability, the book’s unexpected structure, and its study of female rage. We’ve also got recommendations for more of this year’s big books—perfect additions to your summer reading pile.

“Yesteryear has dominated many of my book club conversations”—Tash Barsby

Editor Tash Barsby looked at the book from both a marketing and a literary perspective and was struck by its second timeline. However, she also pointed out that the hype might have skewed her enjoyment of the book as a whole.

I was instantly hooked by the first section of the novel; the voice really captured my interest, and I loved the razor-sharp contrast between her inner voice and her outer voice. It really helped to build my understanding of her character and personality in an immediately engaging, succinct way. However, I felt the structure of the middle section, once the novel split into its dual-timeline format, was really not what I had expected.

With the explosive revelation at the end of the first part, I felt a little cheated when I was pulled away to experience what felt like a significant amount of backstory! So while overall I really appreciated the themes and voice, and thought it was a very fun read, I think my experience of it personally suffered a little too much by the fact it went very far from what I had anticipated from the pitch. Even so, Yesteryear has dominated my book club conversations, among colleagues and friends—so hats off to Caro Claire Burke, and the marketing team! (Also shout out to the gorgeous cover.)
—Tash Barsby, The Novelry editorial director

“Sometimes books don’t match up to the hype—but I really enjoyed it!”—Sorcha Rose

The Novelry editor Sorcha Rose was also tentative about the book’s buzz before reading, but was pleased to find it met her expectations.

I saw the buzz for Yesteryear before it was even released, with reviews calling it “the debut of the year.” So my hopes were high when I picked it up to read—which sometimes is a bad thing, as books don’t match up to the hype—but I really enjoyed it! I’ve been struggling to get into a lot of the books I’ve been reading recently, and I loved how entertaining the story was. It might be a funny thing to say, as surely all books should be entertaining? But I felt that the main goal of this novel was to entertain a reader before anything else, and that’s what made it so propulsive.

The female rage was great to read also, and though I hear the opinions that the main character was incredibly unlikable, somehow, I found myself rooting for her—sue me! I have a taste for characters who do nothing but ruin their life and self-destruct, so this ticked a big box for me (no spoilers, I promise). I’ve also heard from other readers that they saw the twist coming, which is a reason they didn’t love the book, but so did I! It didn’t bother me, as the whole story is building to this final reveal, and the groundwork had been laid to make it satisfying. If the ending was so out there and felt disconnected from everything that came before it, wouldn’t that make you feel cheated?

This is a book where the film/TV series was so vivid in my mind as I was reading, so it makes sense that the rights were part of a competitive bidding war... I know it won’t be long before we see this on the little or big screen and I’ll be interested to see if the story is as divisive then.
—Sorcha Rose, The Novelry editor

The story of Yesteryear in a nutshell

• The protagonist, Natalie, finds herself in the early days of society after living a modern life as a family-oriented mother with a cowboy husband, an extremely active social media account, and a home full of more kids than she can keep track of, all wrapped up in very traditional values. Natalie’s family life revolves around the ranch, her husband, and the constant demands of raising so many children—a life she’s built her entire online persona around. Her old college roommate Reena represents the type of woman Natalie resents, and serves as a foil as a more progressive character.
• When Natalie suddenly wakes up in 1855, her identity and reality is thrown entirely out of balance. What happened? Her children are suddenly not her children, and her husband seems familiar, but not the young man she married (he’s described as “Old Caleb”). Stripped of the marriage and family she knew, the home she lives in, and any explanation for what’s happened to her, Natalie has to work out how she survives this new reality, with her own life at risk.
• The book works through many dark subject matters, such as the negative impacts of social media, postpartum depression, untreated mental illness, child abuse and child neglect, and Natalie’s troubled journey with motherhood. We also discover how the children are impacted by their parents’ way of living (especially their mother) as the story unwinds, while Natalie’s unraveling humanity is called into question.

“This feels totally unique to anything else out there”—Lily Cooper

The Novelry editor Lily Cooper was fascinated by the book’s love–hate repute and wondered whether Natalie’s story speaks to angry women everywhere, or something far more complicated.

Yesteryear is one of the rare books where it doesn’t matter whether you loved it, hated it, or fell somewhere in the middle (which is where I ended up)—everyone I know who has read it has been interested in talking about it, which feels like a testament to its really original hook and a culturally relevant theme that people are genuinely interested in discussing.

The plot and pacing fell down a little for me in contrast. The present-day sections are quite slow-moving, and from a personal perspective, I didn’t feel like they had as much fun with the premise as they might have (the nineteenth-century backdrop feels a little under-utilized) and so it’s quite a backstory-heavy read. And the twist at the end is so ambitious, I think she gave herself too tall an order to pull it off in a really satisfying way through the plot. (My bar for this will always be Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough—love it or hate it, it’s a masterclass in writing a “should-have-seen-it-coming-but-didn’t” ending!)

But what I loved was how convincing it felt: we talk a lot about “voice” at The Novelry, and Natalie Heller Mills, as a person, with her emotional logic and her motivations, felt utterly real. So while she’s an unlikable narrator, she is also compelling to follow. And despite the pacing issues, the narrative drive is still really strong: you know exactly what the stakes are and what you’re reading to find out.

I’ve had such great conversations with people in my life about this one: is Natalie a feminist anti-heroine, writing to the heart of the rage of women who are fed up of holding their household and kids together, or is she a dangerous hypocrite, peddling values she doesn’t believe in to ensure her financial security? Can she be both? Though I was slightly lukewarm on the read, what I have really loved about it is the fact that it’s so fresh: getting stuck in time travel is a trope as old as time, and yet this is a take on it that has plenty of new things to say.
—Lily Cooper, The Novelry editor

“There’s a lot to analyze”—Heather Webb

Writing coach and author Heather Webb was cooler on the book but still glad to have read it, noting some things Yesteryear could have improved upon.

The premise was really juicy to me and a great twist on what was already out there. So I was really looking forward to this one. I have to admit, though, I felt a little hoodwinked. This wasn't actually a time-slip, though it was advertised that way. Instead, the protagonist was deeply mired in mental health issues and a cult-like mentality that I believe began with postpartum depression and spiraled from there.

I don’t mind an unlikable character. I’ve written them myself. But an unlikable character at least should evoke sympathy in some way or keep you utterly fascinated. For me, this book had the latter. As a mentally ill woman, she didn’t evoke sympathy in me at all, nor were any of the characters sympathetic. They were all so odious, and I find that as tiresome as a book where all the characters are Disney replicas. There’s more nuance in the world, and I think books that don’t explore those nuances lack depth.

Ultimately, this book read like a debut novel to me because the pacing was clunky and uneven, there was too much backstory, and the messaging overdone and repetitive. She could have cut 50 pages and lost nothing.

Did I like the book? I did like the sharp voice, in particular when her internal thoughts contrasted with her external actions. I do think it was worth a read. Any book that makes that much buzz is worth a read in my mind, because I like to see why people are so interested and why publishers have put their weight behind it. Sometimes I’m let down by those big buzzy books, and though I can’t say I liked this one, I’m really glad I read it. There’s a lot to talk about, a lot to analyze, and I think there’s a lot of lessons to be learned in terms of craft both in what to do as well as what to avoid.
—Heather Webb, The Novelry coach

“The main character’s voice tugged at me”—Alice Kuipers

Writing coach and author Alice Kuipers loved escaping into Natalie’s life and found “her disastrous interpretation of what it means to be a woman in 2026” fascinating. As Natalie’s family story grows stranger, Alice finds the book’s twisted depiction of motherhood incredibly interesting.

I read Yesteryear when my partner was away and I was caring for our four children. I needed a book that would pull me in, and from the first page the main character’s voice tugged at me. The more unhinged she became, the more I enjoyed just how outrageous she was.

At home, I was mired in the domestic, doing all the “good-girl” things; in the book, the story became more and more about what it means if you take the hard work of being a woman and decide to go against ALL the other women dealing with the same endless to-dos. While everything Natalie did is antithetical to how I’ve chosen to live my life, her disastrous interpretation of what it means to be a woman in 2026 gave me nothing but pleasure—and rage—in my secret reading hours. I loved it. My 15-year-old daughter read it after me and said: “WHAT was that? Mind. Blown.”
—Alice Kuipers, The Novelry coach

To learn more about Caro Claire Burke, check out her podcast, Diabolical Lies.

Beyond the Yesteryear book: other favorite books of 2026 so far

It isn’t just Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear that has been sparking such avid conversation in the world of fiction and social media this year. Here are a few other book club picks recommended by The Novelry team worth adding to your summer reading stacks.

Into the Blue
Chosen by Lily Cooper

My best book of 2026 so far is Into the Blue by Emma Brodie. It’s a romance between two actors, AJ and Noah, who meet as teenagers at a video rental store where they bond over their favorite sci-fi show and discover an electric connection when they perform together. But at the end of the summer, Noah walks out from AJ’s life with no explanation.

A few years later, they reunite when they are both cast in the revival of the show that they both loved. The chemistry between them sparks all over again (and my god, does it spark!) but Noah seems, for mysterious reasons, to want to keep himself away from AJ... Though they both find, over the course of the next few years, that neither of them can. If you combined the best bits of How to End a Love Story and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, this is a truly epic love story that ticks all my favorite boxes: heady romantic intensity, dialogue that crackles off the page, floods of tears, and a wonderfully weird sci-fi TV show backdrop that only this author could have written. It’s hard to find romances that are doing something genuinely original, but this one seared itself onto my brain.
—Lily Cooper

Margo’s Got Money Troubles
Chosen by Katie Khan

I’m a huge fan of novels that demand to be read in one night—even if that means finishing the book at 2am and starting work the next morning with a huge sleep debt. This razor-sharp, darkly funny novel by Rufi Thorpe hit precisely that spot for me; the voice grabs you from the opening page and doesn’t let go! Recommended by the New York Times, TIME, Kirkus Reviews, the Washington Post, and Oprah Daily—and now adapted into an Apple TV series by A24 starring Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Nick Offerman, and Nicole Kidman—this is a bold, voice-driven story about survival, reinvention, and the complicated economics of being a young woman in modern America.

Margo is broke, pregnant, and freshly unemployed... but she’s also resourceful. When she turns to OnlyFans to make ends meet, what unfolds is both a provocative exploration of agency and a surprisingly tender story about motherhood, identity, and the stories we tell to survive.

For writers, it’s packed with craft lessons on voice, stakes, and flawed characters. Written in first person from Margo’s perspective, I blinked when scenes began to appear in third person... because Margo, a writer, was disassociating from herself in those moments! I love when an author goes bravura with their style in a commercially friendly genre novel. Brava.
—Katie Khan‍

The Everlasting
Chosen by Elizabeth Kulhanek

I read Alix E. Harrow’s The Everlasting in one gulp and am still thinking about it months later. It’s so rare that I find a book that has it all: excellent line-level writing, rich characterization, a romance that feels electric and earned... I could go on! I was impressed by how it balances the epic and the intimate, which can be a challenge for fantasy at this scope. I was reading for the characters’ journeys—their individual quests for purpose as well as their love story—but those were seamlessly intertwined with big picture ideas about myth-making, history, and conquest.

Moreover, this was an ambitious novel from a structural perspective. I’ve followed Alix Harrow’s career since her wonderful 2019 debut, and I feel like I’m watching her master her craft in real time. I was delighted by how flawlessly she executed the massive challenge of a time-loop story with alternating second-person perspectives. Both a writing masterclass and brilliant literary fantasy!
—Elizabeth Kulhanek

So, what do you make of our list so far? And what's YOUR opinion on Yesteryear? Did you eat it up in one sitting and can’t stop thinking about it, or perhaps you appreciated the idea more than the overall arc? Is there another book that will be 2026’s standout? See you in December to find out.

Happy reading!

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