Book Description 

When Beth March is found dead in the woods on New Year’s Day, her sisters vow to uncover her murderer.

Suspects abound. There’s the neighbor who has feelings for not one but two of the girls. Meg’s manipulative best friend. Amy’s flirtatious mentor. And Beth’s lionhearted first love. But it doesn’t take the surviving sisters much digging to uncover motives each one of the March girls had for doing the unthinkable.

Jo, an aspiring author with a huge following on social media, would do anything to hook readers. Would she kill her sister for the story? Amy dreams of studying art in Europe, but she’ll need money from her aunt—money that’s always been earmarked for Beth. And Meg wouldn’t dream of hurting her sister…but her boyfriend might have, and she’ll protect him at all costs.

Despite the growing suspicion within the family, it’s hard to know for sure if the crime was committed by someone close to home. After all, the March sisters were dragged into the spotlight months ago when their father published a controversial bestseller about his own daughters. Beth could have been killed by anyone.

Beth’s perspective told in flashback unfolds next to Meg, Jo, and Amy’s increasingly fraught investigation as the tragedy threatens to rip the Marches apart.

My Review 

I want to begin this review by confessing that I have never read the original Little Women. I have watched both the 1994 and 2019 movies— and even the 1949 version. In addition, I have gone to the Alcott family home and done the whole tour thing. I even purchased a little plush Scrabble mouse. 

But I have never read the original. 

That being said, I didn’t go into reading this variation completely ignorant of the basic plot. Nor, gentle reader, should you, given the title of the book. 

The plot unfolds from multiple perspectives and both before Beth’s death and in the aftermath as the surviving sisters try to figure out who would have hurt their sweet beloved Beth. There are plenty of suspects and it seems like everyone has—if not a motive, then a reason– regarding Beth’s death. 

 The characters’ basic personalities translate well from the Civil War era to the modern day, with one notable exemption: Mr. March is no longer a soldier away in the war. Rather, his absence is due to absconding after writing about his daughters in a successful novel; a decision that brought notoriety to the quartet even before Beth’s tragedy. 

I would absolutely recommend Beth is Dead. This is not the first Little Women variation, but it’s one of the more interesting ones that I have read. The book is well thought-out and the pacing is good. There’s the perfect amount of pull from the flashback scenes to keep the reader engaged with the events unfolding in the present-day. This is a wonderful debut novel and I will be keeping my eye out for more from Bernet in the future.  

I received a digital ARC of this book from Simon&Schuster/NetGalley.