Excerpt from Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

It was not he, John Billington, nor his kind, who supported Bradford as governor. Billington had arrived as an indentured servant and as such was not even permitted to vote. Had the servants had a vote, Billington's people would have been in the majority and Billington's kind would have led. But no, he knew, they never would. They never did.

John Billington had not been brought up with an inheritance, as Bradford, Brewster, and Carver were, as many of these hypocrites were, though they complained that Holland did not offer them enough. Being poor did not make him, John Billington, profane. Profanity was a man who preached God's way and acted against it. Profanity was forbidding baptism and the celebration of Christmas, as these puritans did.

Plymouth was the England that John Billington had tried to escape, just under a different name. Instead of King James, there was Governor Bradford and his hired soldier, Myles Standish.

Billington let the chickens out of their coop. They rushed toward him, eager for scraps, but he had left the carrots and corn in the house. He lunged. Shoo.

Dear God, he thought. Those birds. What sign could this be? A voice came to him, as it did on occasion. The voice may have been his own, or may have been his ancestors, or may have been God. But whenever it spoke, he listened.

Today all will appear the same, but something will not be.

Excerpted from Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit. Copyright © 2020 by TaraShea Nesbit. Excerpted by permission of Bloomsbury USA. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.