Author Caro Claire Burke in conversaton with Readings From Oconomowaukee

Description

Our Readings from Oconomowaukee event series is back with a double feature!

Join us at Books & Company at 1:00 p.m. for a conversation with author Caro Claire Burke about her debut novel, Yesteryear. 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. Burke will be in conversation with Daniel Goldin, owner of Boswell Books, and Lisa Baudoin, owner of Books & Company.

Please register for this free event at Books & Company at 1:00pm.

If you are unable to join us in the afternoon, don't miss the evening event at 6:30pm at Milwaukee's Boswell Books! See boswellbooks.com for more details and free registration.

About the book:

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.

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.

About the author:

CARO CLAIRE BURKE received her Master's in Fine Arts from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She is the co-host of Diabolical Lies, a politics and culture podcast. Yesteryear is her first novel.