Book Review: Beheld, by TaraShea Nesbit

By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm

“Beheld: A Novel” by TaraShea Nesbit
c.2020, Bloomsbury $26.00 / $34.99 Canada
275 pages

Either you are a Have… or you are a Have Not.

If you Have, you feel secure, knowing that what you need is close. If you are in the latter category, you may want for much and own very little. It’s not fair, it’s not equitable, and in the new book “Beheld” by TaraShea Nesbit, it gets worse.

She should have known it was coming.

The signs were all there, but while Alice Bradford noted them, she paid little heed. With three small children to tend and a household to run, she had no time for worry – although worry crept into her mind often.

It was “the year of our Lord sixteen hundred and thirty,” a decade since a small handful of English landed at Plymouth and the colony had first settled. Alice wasn’t among them then; she came later, after her best consort, Dorothy, died; and after Dorothy’s husband, William, called for a new wife.

Life in Plymouth had gone well for Alice, although she missed the children she had by her first husband, boys who’d been left behind in Holland. William promised that both their sons would be brought soon; in the meantime, there was much to do – including things that, as the wife of the leader of the colony, were necessary but regretful. Alice did not want to confront her nearest neighbor’s wife, or to tell her things she must know.

Like her husband, John, Eleanor Billington came to Plymouth as an indentured slave. For seven years, she dressed, fed, cleaned, and cared for the colony’s wealthier citizens, figuring that at the end of servitude, she’d become a full and equal member of the village, with cows, goats, acreage, and a home like everyone else’s.

Alas, William Bradford and his soldier, Myles Standish ensured that that didn’t happen, and though Eleanor chafed, she worried more about John.

She’d seen the dangers beyond the colony’s fence. She knew what was inside the compound could be worse…

For weeks now, you’ve been stuck inside and you’ve read everything from serial to cereal box. You’re antsy. You’re restless. So here’s your next book.

Don’t judge it by its cover, though. It may appear that “Beheld” contains healthy sips from a handmaiden’s novel and peeks of stuffy Puritanical life but it’s really more of a mystery on top of a mystery on top of a feminist tale on top of a story of rich-versus-poor. Here, you’ll meet people that history treats with heroics, but that author TaraShea Nesbit makes relatable as humans who lie, cheat, abuse, lie some more, and act with lasciviousness.

And that mystery…?  From the first paragraph, you know something dreadful has happened but Nesbit makes readers wait to find out, while a cold fog rolls over and skin-crawling doom creeps in. That shivery-ness makes this a perfect staying-in novel.

This is one of those gaspy tales that can hold you enthralled until it’s time to shock you good, and if you need something different, find it. Indeed, “Beheld” is a book you must have.

The Bookworm is Terri Schlichenmeyer. Terri has been reading since she was 3 years old and she never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 13,000 books.