When a living history museum turns deadly right before Thanksgiving, armchair historian, Miranda Lewis, becomes an amateur sleuth. At Plimoth Plantation, the famous seventeenth-century village where her niece works as an interpreter, Miranda discovers protesting Indians, hostile Pilgrims, and finally a grisly murder. With her niece under suspicion, Miranda struggles to prove her innocent and ends up face to face with a ruthless killer. Mystery by Leslie Wheeler; originally published by Larcom Press

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Publishers Weekly Best Fiction Book of 2020 Most Anticipated Books of 2020 - Vogue, Medium, LitHub Honoree for the 2021 Society of Midland Authors Prize Finalist for the 2021 Ohioana Book Award in fiction A Massachusetts Book Awards “Must Read Book” From 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 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?

The utterly absorbing real story of the lives of the Pilgrims, whose desires and foibles may be more recognizable to us than they first appear. Americans have been schooled to believe that their forefathers, the Pilgrims, were somber, dark-clad, pure-of-heart figures who conceived their country on the foundation of piety, hard work, and the desire to live simply and honestly. But the truth is far from the portrait painted by decades of historians. They wore brightly colored clothing, often drank heavily, believed in witches, had premarital sex and adulterous affairs, and committed petty and serious crimes against their neighbors in surprisingly high numbers. Beginning by debunking the numerous myths that surround the landing of the Mayflower and the first Thanksgiving, James Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz lead us through court transcripts, wills, probate listings, and rare firsthand accounts, as well as archaeological finds, to reveal the true story of life in colonial America.

"A brutal killing, an all-out manhunt, and a riveting account of the first murder trial in U.S. history--set in the 1600s in colonial New England against the backdrop of the Pequot War (between the Pequot tribe and the colonists of Massachusetts Bay), an explosive trial whose outcome changed the course of history, ended a two-year war, and brought about a peace that allowed the colonies to become a full-blown nation. The year: 1638. The setting: Providence, Plymouth Colony. A young Nipmuc tribesman, returning home from trading beaver pelts, is fatally stabbed in a robbery in the woods near Plymouth Colony, by a white runaway servant and fellow rogues. The young tribesman, fighting for his life, is able, with his final breaths, to reveal the details of the attack to Providence's governor, Roger Williams. A frantic manhunt by the fledgling government of Plymouth ensues, followed by the convening of the first trial, with Plymouth's governor Thomas Prence presiding as judge. The jury: local settlers (white) whose allegiance seems more likely to be with the accused than with the murdered (a native) . . . Tobey Pearl, piecing together a fascinating narrative through original research and first-rate detective work, re-creates in detail the full and startling, pivotal moment in pre-revolutionary America, as she examines the evolution of our nascent civil liberties and the role of the jury as a safeguard against injustice"--

“A taut romantic thriller which mixes past and present with a menacing atmosphere, believable characters, and a fast-moving plot.”—Suspense Magazine Bostonian Kathryn Stinson is on a deeply personal quest to solve a family mystery: the identity of a nameless beauty in an old photograph from over a century ago. But, as Kathryn quickly discovers when she shows up in the sleepy hilltown of New Nottingham, the Berkshires possess a host of dark secrets—both ancient and new—that can only be revealed at the price of danger and even death. Her suspicious neighbors on Rattlesnake Hill become openly hostile when Kathryn starts seeking answers to a more recent mystery: the murder of Diana Farley, who once occupied the house Kathryn is now renting. Was it Diana’s husband, who killed her to keep her from divorcing him, or her lover, Earl Barker, a backwoods charmer and leading member of a wild clan known for their violent tempers? When Kathryn plunges into a passionate affair with Earl, she puts herself on a collision course with past and present. She must find out if Earl killed Diana, or risk becoming a victim herself. “Strong characterization with a believable, surprise-filled plot and a voice reminiscent of Sharyn McCrumb in her Ballad series.”—Denise Dietz, USA Today bestselling author “A riveting tale of past and present, innocence and evil, that kept me turning the pages far into the night.”—Barbara Ross, Agatha Award-nominated author of the Maine Clambake Mysteries