Beahrs, Andrew 1973–

PERSONAL: Born 1973, in CT; married; wife's name Eli (a teacher); children: Erik. Education: Attended University of California at Berkeley; University of Virginia, M.S.; Spalding University, M.F.A. Hobbies and other interests: SCUBA diving, capoeira, playing the cello, bluegrass music.

ADDRESSES: Home—Berkeley, CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, The Toby Press, 2 Great Pasture Rd., Danbury, CT 06810. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer.

WRITINGS:

Strange Saint (novel), Toby Press (Danbury, CT), 2005.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A companion novel to Strange Saint; a novel about musical innovations in Paris around the time of the French Revolution.

SIDELIGHTS: An archeologist by training, Andrew Beahrs endeavored to write a first novel that uses some of his educational background, adding realism to his tale about the Pilgrims. Melode, the main character in Strange Saint, is enduring a life of servitude in England when she joins Adam, the son of a minister of the Saints—or Pilgrims—on a boat to the New World. Although she is falling in love with Adam, in his increasing religious fervor he soon rejects her. Me-lode subsequently has an affair with another man and becomes pregnant. Disgraced, she is thrown off the ship and left in Newfoundland, where she and her child face a new struggle just to survive. In a mixed blessing, she is rescued and makes her way to the new colony, where she finds herself a social reject among the pious Pilgrims. Although Mark Andre Singer commented in a Library Journal review that the heroine's views on sex were a bit hard to believe, the exciting plot in Strange Saint "smoothes out the occasional stylistic wrinkle." A Publishers Weekly contributor praised this "moving" story for its "sumptuous description and … period's language."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, September 1, 2005, Mark Andre Singer, review of Strange Saint, p. 127.

Publishers Weekly, September 5, 2005, review of Strange Saint, p. 36.

ONLINE

Andrew Beahrs Home Page, http://www.andrewbeahrs.com (February 1, 2006).

Word Museum, http://www.wordmuseum.com/ (February 1, 2006), Julie Failla Earhart, review of Strange Saint.