A Publishers Weekly Best Fiction Book of 2020Most Anticipated Books of 2020 — Vogue, Medium, LitHubFrom the bestselling author of The Wives of Los Alamos comes the riveting story of a stranger’s arrival in the fledgling colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts–and a crime that shakes the divided community to its core.Ten years after the Mayflower pilgrims arrived on rocky, unfamiliar soil, Plymouth is … Mayflower pilgrims arrived on rocky, unfamiliar soil, Plymouth is not the land its residents had imagined. Seemingly established on a dream of religious freedom, in reality the town is led by fervent puritans who prohibit the residents from living, trading, and worshipping as they choose. By the time an unfamiliar ship, bearing new colonists, appears on the horizon one summer morning, Anglican outsiders have had enough.
With gripping, immersive details and exquisite prose, TaraShea Nesbit reframes the story of the pilgrims in the previously unheard voices of two women of very different status and means. She evokes a vivid, ominous Plymouth, populated by famous and unknown characters alike, each with conflicting desires and questionable behavior.
Suspenseful and beautifully wrought, Beheld is about a murder and a trial, and the motivations–personal and political–that cause people to act in unsavory ways. It is also an intimate portrait of love, motherhood, and friendship that asks: Whose stories get told over time, who gets believed–and subsequently, who gets punished?
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Beheld breathes fresh life into a world grown still and murky beneath the scrim of legend — rife with intrigue, fractured by difference, marked by violence, and full of haunting images. With gorgeous, period-inflected prose, Nesbit takes us back to the earliest days of New England to look through the eyes and over the shoulders of historical characters both remembered and not. I read it at a gallop. What a marvel this novel is.
In a gripping retelling of the Plymouth colony’s first murder, we finally hear the voices of women — and they speak an unvarnished truth that turns history on its pointy-hatted head. Truly a riveting read.
A realistic book that not only informed but was a haunting picture of what type of life the early American settlers faced. They traded the problems of their previous life in Europe for the hardships of a new beginning in a desolate land as well as the unpredicable judgements of their fellow man.
Tedious
Great read!
The popular perception of those who arrived on the shores of North America on the Mayflower is that they were all godly puritans and that the colony of Plymouth was an idyllic community where everyone worked equally hard and religious harmony prevailed.
This image may be idealized, if we are to believe the version of the story presented in TaraShea Nesbit’s new historical novel, Beheld. Set in the year 1630, it shows Plymouth, on the coast of what is today eastern Massachusetts, in its tenth year of existence. The place is turning a minimal profit from agriculture and animal husbandry and is still paying its debts to its English investors.
But there is a rift between the “elites” of the settlement, led by William Bradford, and those who came with them on the Mayflower as their indentured servants. One of them is John Billington, who does not share the puritan principles, and who had just completed the term of his servitude. As a man free from any obligation to others, he expects to receive an acre of land for each member of his family, as is the rule for every man, woman, and child in the colony. However, the puritans, convinced of their superiority over him and other current or former servants, refuse to grant him the acre that should have belonged to recently deceased son .
Meanwhile, a new ship appears on the horizon. It, too, carries settlers from Europe for the colony thta needs new members to grow and expand. But not everyone is sharing in the excitement. When his last plea for redress to Bradford falls on deaf ears, Billington vows to take justice into his own hands before his land is given to one of the new arrivals.
Beheld is told from the perspective of Billington and his wife as well as Bradford and his wife, showing how both sides rationalized their positions in the growing conflict. What it points to, in effect, is that the social distinctions and inequalities in the old world were transplanted into the new one along with the settlers. It contains flashbacks to the puritan community’s earlier life in Holland, and the hardships and sacrifices of the subsequent journey. It is an informative look at the history and an interesting reimagining of the lives – especially of the colony’s women – that we know only from the settlers’ concise accounts.
TaraShea Nesbit’s puritans are passionate and vengeful and entrancing. Part mystery, part love story, beautifully told and meticulously researched, Beheld reanimates and complicates the mythologies of America’s earliest settlers. I was sad when it ended.
Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit is a great historical fiction novel that takes place during the Plymouth settlement (1620-onward) after the Mayflower voyage. This is a gripping, fascinating look at human behavior as well as a great insight into what it was truly like living in then.
The author shows us that humans will revert to similar themes and behaviors no matter the location, the generation, the “religion”, or the self-beliefs. It was fascinating to see the created thought processes from people that actually existed during this time, especially giving a voice to the women. Most documents reflecting this time center on the comings and goings (well alleged) and the male voice. It was so refreshing (and quite sad in some parts) to see from another angle the trials and tribulations that took place.
This was a great, and unique, read that transported the reader to another time and place, and for me, was over far too soon.
Excellent. 5/5 stars
Thank you NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for this ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.