Staff Recommendations, Week of April 21, 2026

Staff recs for three new books!

First up, it's Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, which is the April selection of the Good Morning America book club as well as a book recommended by three different Boswellians. This one came out a couple weeks ago but somehow slipped past the blog. But it's here now! 

Rec #1 comes from Jenny: "I picked this up because I’m a huge fan of time-travel, but in the case of Yesteryear, I wasn’t sure if I was reading speculative sci-fi or a twisted thriller about reality TV. Or, perhaps, neither. All I knew for certain was that I was reading a clever novel about the behind-the-scenes life of an Internet influencer named Natalie Heller Mills. Natalie lives on a farm in Idaho with a husband she believes borders on useless and five (soon-to-be-six) kids, and she’s great at pretending that every bit of her pretend pioneer farm life is absolutely perfect. So good, in fact, that she has millions of Instagram followers who love to watch her bake from scratch and feed her chickens. Do the followers know about the two nannies and the Mexican farm workers? Of course not. Interspersed between chapters focused on modern times with the off-camera microwave and dishwasher, Natalie has somehow crash-landed into what she’s told is the year 1855. The kids are similar looking, but with different names, and her husband Caleb looks older and appears capable of actually farming. Turns out pioneer life in the past is grueling and dirty. How is she going to escape back to her real (if made-up) life? I highly recommend choosing this for your next book club. Readers will love debating Natalie’s choices, but the larger issues of trad-wives and good Christian women, not to mention Instagram influencers, will provide plenty of topics for a fascinating discussion of the times we are living in."

Rec #2 from Kathryn: "The best reading experience for me is one where the author makes me empathize with a character that I completely disagree with. This is definitely that kind of book. Told in multiple timelines, we got to see the main character, Natalie, grow in ways that are both entirely expected and somehow still surprising. Everyone is going to tell you this is the next big book club book, and wow are they correct. I finished it over a week ago, and I still can't succinctly describe everything I feel about it. It's so beautifully written. I highly recommend you read it for yourself. And when you do, let me know what you think! I want to talk about it!!"

And rec #3 from Jason: "In Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, a picture-perfect trad wife influencer curates a serene, enviable life online - while quietly unraveling beneath the surface. As the strain of maintaining the façade drives her toward a breaking point, she becomes painfully aware that the life she’s built is a sham she can’t escape. When she suddenly slips unstuck in time, it feels less like liberation and more like a jarring reckoning - forcing her to confront not just her past, but the unsettling question of why it all happened at all."

Caro Claire Burke will make a stop at Boswell on her tour for this book, too, as the latest installment of the Readings from Oconomowaukee event series. And yes, that means there's a stop at Books & Company in Oconomowoc, too.

Both events take place on Thursday, May 21. Daytime event is 1 pm at Books & Company - click here for more info on that one. The evening event is 6:30 pm at Boswell - click here for more information about this event.

And now, two horror recommendations!

Jeremy recommends Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker. Jeremy says: "A waking nightmare ties two lost souls between modern day and Edo era Japan. Baker weaves a tenebrous tale steeped in Japanese mythology, ancient samurai tradition, and the disorienting visions of an unreliable narrator. Horror and history are twisted together into a unique and tragic story that haunted me long after the final page. The perfect read for fans of J-horror and Japanese history."

And Kathryn recommends Bodies of Work, a new novella by Clay McLeod Chapman: "Visually stunning, this horror novella feels more like viewing an experimental art installation than reading a story about a serial killer. It's suffocating and dream-like. A fast read that lingers for a long time. It made me uncomfortable from start to finish, in the most astounding ways possible."

And those are the recs!