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A review by marilynw
Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit
4.0
Beheld is not a feel good book. In this historical fiction taking place ten years after the first Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth, things are tense, inhospitable and not at all what they had hoped for when they left their former countries for a new land, full of promise, hope, and imagined glories. Those who left their countries for religious freedom are all too happy to impose their beliefs on everyone else. The indentured servants that they needed to even have a chance of surviving in the new world have never been allowed to rise up from their lowly levels. Class segregation is at its worst. Some of the new leadership is only too happy to murder innocent people, in the name of whatever rules they have made up. Some of the friendly, helpful Indians have been slaughtered to show the rest of them who is in control. Food, all provisions, are scarce and even though the existing Pilgrims in the new country need more people to come to their world to get much needed supplies and financing, they also fear that the new people will be those who are "not them". They fear being outnumbered by those with beliefs different from their own.
The story is told from several different perspectives. Alice and Eleanor play the biggest parts in telling their story although Nature even gets a turn to show who is really running the show. In nature, there are peaceful scenes that can then be shattered by animals not only attacking other animals for food, but also wolves attacking their own weaker kin. This is also reflected in how the humans treat each other, tearing down those who are already down, not allowing them to even get a foothold or feeling of security. Staying on top by keeping everyone else under one's foot.
One of the most sympathetic characters is a young man who is murdered by a former indentured servant, whose anger has reached its limit, as the former servant is cheated and held down by those who hold all the cards in this game of life. There are also young children who have been sold as slaves by their father, because he no longer wants to care for them. All the indentured servants are at the mercy of their owners and there are Godly men who do unmentionable things behind closed doors. A young woman who is raped by her owner's brother is killed for getting pregnant. Nothing is fair in this life, cruelty is badly disguised as justice.
Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing/Macmillan and Edelweiss for this ARC.
The story is told from several different perspectives. Alice and Eleanor play the biggest parts in telling their story although Nature even gets a turn to show who is really running the show. In nature, there are peaceful scenes that can then be shattered by animals not only attacking other animals for food, but also wolves attacking their own weaker kin. This is also reflected in how the humans treat each other, tearing down those who are already down, not allowing them to even get a foothold or feeling of security. Staying on top by keeping everyone else under one's foot.
One of the most sympathetic characters is a young man who is murdered by a former indentured servant, whose anger has reached its limit, as the former servant is cheated and held down by those who hold all the cards in this game of life. There are also young children who have been sold as slaves by their father, because he no longer wants to care for them. All the indentured servants are at the mercy of their owners and there are Godly men who do unmentionable things behind closed doors. A young woman who is raped by her owner's brother is killed for getting pregnant. Nothing is fair in this life, cruelty is badly disguised as justice.
Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing/Macmillan and Edelweiss for this ARC.