Customer Reviews

Strange Saint

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This stirring and earthy debut colorfully depicts the insularity and harshness of 17th century agrarian life from the viewpoint of Melode, a passionate and lonely 16-year-old girl. An orphan, she doesn't know who her parents were, only that they died in or fled from the tavern fire the local religious sect, the "Saints," set to drive them out when she was two. The only survivor, Melode was not adopted by the strict, dour community, but taken in as a servant.

She chafes against her lowly, outcast position in a society that claims itself egalitarian, and resentfully despises their hypocrisy, but it doesn't occur to her to renounce the only religion and community she has ever known. Where would she go? What would she do? She does her work and confines her rebellion to small things - until she falls in love and lust with Adam Stradling, son of the Saints' minister and leader and a bit of a rebel himself, who delights her with his irreverent mimicry of his father, John.

Beahrs, with a background in archaeology and anthropology, bases this community on the Plymouth Colony people, the Pilgrims, as they came to be called. Farmers (husbandmen) for the most part, they keep to themselves, shunning the world and fearful of persecution. Because they do not recognize the king as the head of their church, their religion is illegal. Within the community discipline is harsh, with the stocks employed for infractions like observing forbidden holidays or clinging to superstitions. It is a pared down religion, shorn of frills and ceremony.

But Beahrs keeps his characters human, allowing them to stray from the righteous path in one direction or another. Some, including Melode, cling to the community because it's all they know. But when their land is rented and when the owner dies and his son brings in new settlers, the Saints decide to leave behind their familiar, but no longer safe world and migrate to the New World.

John Stradling sends Adam to London to arrange passage. Although eager for the adventure, Adam promises to reunite with Melode on the ship. Naturally things do not go as smoothly as Melode hopes, but to say more would be to sacrifice some of the plot's suspense. And there is plenty of that.

Not edge-of-the-seat, nail-biting suspense, but an absorbing, character-driven desire to know what happens next. And plenty does. From stifling, smelly berths and storm-tossed leaky hulls to precarious coastal fishing camps, frightening and frightened natives, isolated bird-nesting islands and fractious, struggling settlements, the story moves through much that the journey to the New World could offer in those early days and does it well.

Beahrs has a flair for the cadence of the language. Though he readily admits that no one can know exactly what people sounded like in the early 1600s he does a good job of making the reader feel transported.

Early in the book, the young girls are raking hay:

"I slip into the rhythm of the work line. The raking is rough and tacky where the grass is cut low, tines bumping over warm earth and cropped stalks. Hay builds beneath my rake, heaping in heavy banks. I pull the wooden handle back but it's all pillowy, durable hindrance. We've missed the first cool hour, and the heat of the day is trapped beneath the layers of my clothes like flax oil. The handle is rough and unfinished, and grates against my hands. Sweat beads on my forehead."

His prose is tactile, helping us experience Melode's world, from the extreme but ordinary lack of privacy to the harangue of the meeting room, the strangeness of a new continent and the timelessness of human emotions. Well written, with a fine, melodramatic plot, "Strange Saint" is an adventure for those who like some substance to their historical novels.

--Portsmouth Herald

I am always delighted to find a work of historical fiction where the author demonstrates command not only of the facts and themes of the time, but of the metaphors and language that were used by people of that era. (The books Jem and Sam and An Instance of the Fingerpost come to mind.) The plot of this book is compelling enough, but it is the writing that is most evocative. I look forward to Beahrs' next book.

Absolutely a keeper, this book allows the reader entry into early 17th century life in England and beyond, to the New World.
Extremely well-written with a compelling narrative, Beahrs has re-created a fascinating time in history with a page-turning plot.