Beth is Dead flips the script on a well-loved favourite and delivers something bold, brilliant and brand new.
This is not the Little Women you may recognise. Right out the gate, Katie Bernet delivers a bold reimagining with a twisty YA mystery that keeps you guessing. It is paced fantastically and so well-constructed as it keeps the pages turning. I absolutely adored it and found myself getting lost in the pages until the early hours. The mystery flows brilliantly and you move between different perspectives to uncover the pieces of the jigsaw. Bernet brilliantly leads you down the rabbit hole with a story that shines in both characterisation and plotting. It is a wonderful ode to the original delivered with clear love and respect, but it is also a blazing star in its own right. The twists and turns are devastating and serve to heighten that emotional core that remains at the forefront throughout. This is a book defined by grief and loss, causing every character to reevaluate their relationships with Beth and with one another. They are complicated people, flawed and messy in the way people often are. You can see the framework of the original characters but Bernet adds new touches that serve to deliver her interpretation and match the mystery unfolding before you. I loved the way she used the original story to set up certain reveals and also red herrings. Trust me, you do not know where this story may be going.
I really enjoyed the throughline here about using real-life events as inspiration for art. It has a very meta discussion around writing and the idea of the muse, particularly with the way Bernet uses the original story as a tool within this story. It is such a fun addition to the story and introduces new layers into the YA murder mystery. There is a great interplay between the expected depictions of the sisters and their realities, heightened by how they have been catapulted to stardom and the ensuing chaos from this. As a reader this wrongfoots you and makes you question your own complicity within the narrative. It also deepens all of their characters further and repositions them outside of the original, particularly when it comes to Jo’s dreams and relationship with her father. All of their familial relationships are tested by this new framing and it gives Bernet even more room to play, which she uses to its fullest capacity.
From a murder mystery standpoint, it gives all of them motive and the meta narrative ties into the central mystery in some twisted ways. It is sickeningly familiar when you consider the way the media can position people solely in one narrative and reduce them to a singular trait that then defines them. Bernet’s story is slick and explores these narratives well. There is a tragic beauty to it and a wonderful discussion around parasocial relationships, celebrity and obsession. We all have roles in life that we are expected to fulfil but they do not define us entirely. We are more and can work to be seen as more. Ultimately Bernet is delivering a nuanced and empowering message with this plotline, though the focus remains on their grief and the way Beth’s death has changed their world forever. They will treasure her memory and continue to tell her story in its full glory.
Beth is Dead ultimately pays deep respect to the original but also offers something new and exciting. It is a wonderful exploration of love, loss and legacy that thrives in its characterisation as well as its twisty plotting.
Beth is Dead is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of January 6th 2026 in the US and January 15th in the UK.
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Synopsis
Beth March’s sisters will stop at nothing to track down her killer—until they begin to suspect each other—in this “brilliantly snappy…electrifying” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) debut thriller that’s also a bold, contemporary reimagining of the beloved classic Little Women.
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.
