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Review: Beth is Dead by Katie Bernet

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Beth is Dead by Katie Bernet

Beth is Dead
Katie Bernet
Sarah Barley Books
Published January 6, 2026

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About Beth is Dead

Beth March’s sisters will stop at nothing to track down her killer—until they begin to suspect each other—in this 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.

My Review

This is such an interesting way to reimagine this story. I’ve read the “Jane Austen Murder Mysteries” series by Tirzah Price, which reimagines some of Austen’s novels as murder mysteries set in the time period in which the originals took place. Beth is Dead takes that idea a step further by reimagining the story in a modern setting.

The story contains many subtle and overt nods to the original, as well as some elements that seemed to reference Alcott’s real life. (I haven’t seen the author state that as an intention, so it could be a coincidence.) As events unfolded and I connected the dots from this novel to the original, I found myself nodding along or celebrating the parallel’s inventiveness.

I will admit that the modern setting and the way that some components from the original story were stretched to heighten the suspicion about potential culprits challenged me a bit as a fan of the original. For instance, Laurie and Amy hooking up while Amy was fifteen was a lot for me. Yikes.

I will say that I appreciate a lot of how Bernet modernized the March sisters. Jo, in the original, is always getting in trouble for using slang, so it’s not hard for me to imagine her swearing today or posting personal essays online and cultivating a social media following. That feels like a reasonable parallel to the kinds of short stories she published in the original novel.

I have mixed feelings about the fact that, in this book, her dad has written a novel called Little Women. It’s a novel about the girls, which has started a lot of drama. The story does interrogate whether he had any right to novelize the girls’ lives without their permission. It certainly picks apart his choice to write Beth’s (fictional) death in his novel. I think I would have preferred the novel be written by Jo rather than draw to much focus and attention to her dad’s character and whether or not he’s a good person because of this choice. It felt like it drew the story away from the sisters a lot.

Conclusion

On the whole, I am really glad I read the book. I like the clever way that the original elements reappear here. For the most part, I appreciated the modernized versions of the characters, too. I think fans of Belittled Women by Amanda Sellet will not want to miss this clever reimagining of Little Women.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used somewhat frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Reference to two people (a fifteen-year-old and a seventeen-year-old) who kissed, undressed, and got into bed together before stopping. Another couple makes out in a couple of scenes.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Brief descriptions of a dead body.

Drug Content
Reference to teens drinking alcohol at a New Year’s Eve party. Several teens wake up with awful hangovers. A girl drinks alcohol at school and is suspended. She continues drinking at home, where an adult serves her another glass of wine.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review Once for Yes by Allie Millington

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Once for Yes
Allie Millington
Feiwel & Friends
Published March 25, 2025

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About Once for Yes

The Odenburgh, an old apartment building made of brick and blunt opinions, is the last of its kind in a swiftly changing neighborhood. After years of putting up with people and their many problems, the Odenburgh knows there’s no point in getting attached. They all just leave eventually. A truth that comes all too soon when the building is sold and slated for demolition, giving tenants a month to move out.

No one is more troubled by the news than eleven-year-old Prue, who refuses to leave her family’s apartment. Not when it was the last place she lived with her sister Lina, before she lost Lina forever. When Prue launches a plan to save their home, the Odenburgh joins in—flickering lights, jamming elevators, triggering fire alarms—all to try and bring a building full of bickering residents together. In the process, Prue meets Lewis, an eccentric boy who lives across the street—and the only one who can help her discover the missing elements of her sister’s story.

My Review

I love that the apartment building is such an important character in this book. The Odenburgh is a bit grizzled and feisty, but it obviously cares about the tenants, no matter how quirky they are. The story is mostly told from the Odenburgh and Prue’s perspectives, but a few other characters narrate random scenes here and there, including Lewis, the boy from across the street.

Prue’s family still grieves her sister’s death, though they have all been grieving privately. As Prue approaches her twelfth birthday, she feels everything is wrong. After she turns twelve, her sister Lina will never again be older than Prue is. At times, Prue’s grief is palpable. Her commitment to the talk show game that she used to play with her sisters is funny and heartbreaking. I love that she continues to narrate certain events, like her mother’s emotional changes, as parts of the show.

At the beginning of the book, Prue thinks she is the only one grieving. Through her connection with the Odenburgh and their attempts to save the building, Prue learns that many of her neighbors nurse secret hurts and losses, too. As they begin stepping outside their apartments and sharing memories with one another, Prue stops feeling so alone. I loved that transition in the story, when Prue and some of her neighbors start to see their grief reflected in each other’s experiences. It helped them see past the squabbles they had and work together to try to save the building they love.

I’m definitely a fan of stories that make space for grief, since I don’t think we do enough of that in real life. I’m also a huge fan of stories that explore building community– another thing we often lack. This book offers both, and though it’s got some moments that will have readers reaching for tissues, it’s also got some that leave us cheering for Prue and her neighbors.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Reference to a crush between two twelve-year-old characters.

Spiritual Content
Prue believes the Odenburgh’s flickering lights are a sign that Lina is there with her. The Odenburgh is a character in the story and can communicate through flickering lights, shutting off power, water, and air conditioning, etc.

Violent Content
Death of a sibling (before the story begins). References to a drunk driver killing a young pedestrian.

Drug Content
See Violent Content.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday

I’m sharing this post as a part of a weekly round-up of middle-grade posts called Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday. Check out other blogs with posts about middle-grade books today on Marvelous Middle-Grade Mondays at Always in the Middle.

Review of Sense and Sensibility and Happy Birthday Jane Austen

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Sense and Sensibility
Jane Austen
Puffin Books
Published February 13, 2024 (Orig. 1811)

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About Sense and Sensibility

Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby, she ignores her sister Elinor’s warning that her impulsive behavior leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her.

Through their parallel experience of love– and its threatened loss–the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

Happy Birthday, Jane Austen!

Today (December 16) is Jane Austen’s birthday. She was born 249 years ago on this day in 1775 and was the seventh of eight children in her family. Sense and Sensibility was Austen’s debut novel and was first published anonymously.

Her books have inspired many movies and reimagined stories, including Northranger by Rey Terciero, The Jane Austen Murder Mysteries by Tirzah Price, and For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund.

My Review

It took me far too long to read what is perhaps arguably Austen’s most sister-focused novel, which is only weird considering how much I love sister books. As I’m writing this, I’ve only ever read Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, so I don’t know how her other four novels are structured. This one follows both Marianne and Elinor’s points of view in a narrative that often keeps both girls’ thoughts and actions close at hand. Pride and Prejudice, by contrast, focused almost exclusively on Elizabeth Bennet’s point of view.

What Happens to Those Wild Women

A few things about this book stand out to me as very interesting. One is in the way that Austen treats characters who behave differently than the roles the society of the day expects. For example, Marianne doesn’t hide her emotions or her affection for a particular man. For much of the story, her strong feelings about ideas and people determine how she behaves, even when that behavior departs from the norm.

Two very minor characters, who never appear on scene, have babies while unmarried. In one case, the woman lives a hard life and dies of an illness. Someone cares for her at the end of her life. The second person, a girl of fifteen, is abandoned by her lover, but cared for by a family member who does not appear to blame or shame her for her situation. Instead, the family member blames the lover who abandoned her. Even the lover’s family blames him for leaving her. I found this interesting since so often historical stories focus on women being shamed and “ruined” when they behave outside of the conventions of their society and often consequences seem to ignore the men involved.

The story still generally reflects the values of its time. For example, Marianne and Willoughby treat one another familiarly, which people take to mean they are secretly engaged. A man declaring his intention to marry a woman without social standing or fortune is cut off from his inheritance. Another man is cut off from his inheritance for not marrying a young woman who has had his child.

Subtle Storytelling

I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve seen the movie version of Sense and Sensibility so many times, but I found the storytelling in the book to be a little more subtle than I expected. Sometimes, what constituted a pivotal moment would be related in a sentence or two. For example, Marianne becoming ill after her walk through wet grass to continue grieving over a lost love begins a pretty intense chain of events. But it’s kind of related in passing.

I found myself having to read closely in several passages because the specific words Austen used to convey emotional progression really mattered. I didn’t mind this, but it’s something that we’re not used to doing with modern fiction.

Conclusion

Pride and Prejudice is still a favorite of mine, but having read Sense and Sensibility convinces me that I need to read more Austen. I love the idea of publishing a review of one of her books to remember her birthday, so maybe I’ll keep that up until I’ve read all six of her novels.

Content Notes for Sense and Sensibility

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Reference to love and marriage.

References to sex outside of marriage. Two young women have babies while unmarried. In one instance, the girl’s lover has abandoned her, even after promising to return. Neither of these women appear on scene.

Spiritual Content
One character becomes a clergyman at a small parish.

Violent Content
Very brief (like, one line) reference to a duel fought between two men who both survive.

Drug Content
References to social drinking.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. All opinions are my own.

Review: A Time Traveler’s History of Tomorrow by Kendall Kulper

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A Time Traveler’s History of Tomorrow
Kendall Kulper
Holiday House
Published November 4, 2025

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About A Time Traveler’s History of Tomorrow

A time-bending love story between a prickly young woman and a carefree stranger, who are tasked with saving the universe—after accidentally destroying it in the first place.

Genevieve Newhouse and Ash Hargreaves weren’t supposed to meet like this. Unless it was always meant to be . . .

Gen is a fastidious science prodigy with a chip on her shoulder, and she can turn herself invisible.

Happy-go-lucky Ash has just escaped a sheltered (read: cultish) childhood, and he can manipulate time.

The gifted eighteen-year-olds cross paths at the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair, where Genevieve’s experimental physics project causes an apocalyptic explosion. Ash tries to avert catastrophe by gallantly rewinding time a few minutes, but instead, he transports them back to 1893. The duo finds themselves trapped in an unfamiliar, unwelcoming era, with no idea how to return to their own time—or if their own time even exists. Their cataclysmic leap across decades might have destroyed the world as they know it . . .

Fate and free will intertwine in this page-turning historical romance that sets two irresistible strangers down a chaotic, potentially apocalyptic path. “Will they or won’t they” takes on a whole new meaning as Gen and Ash fight for survival while falling in love.

Hand to fans of Immortal Longings and Anatomy: A Love Story, and don’t miss companion novels Murder for the Modern Girl and A Starlet’s Secret to a Sensational Afterlife.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

My Review

I read The Starlet’s Secret to a Sensational Afterlife by Kendall Kulper, which is about Genevieve’s sister Henny, two years ago, so I was excited to read this companion novel. The historical setting has the same noir feel as the other book, which I love. Most of the story takes place in Chicago in 1893, in and around the World’s Fair.

The chapters alternate from Genevieve and Ash’s perspectives, and I enjoyed both characters. I like that she is the scientist and he is the romantic, people-oriented person in the partnership. It would have been easy to write the characters the opposite way, and I like that Kulper challenged some gender expectations with these characters. Genevieve also finds a talented Black woman in 1893 who mentors her. That created some opportunities for the narrative to note the ways that misogyny didn’t only affect white women, but also women of color.

The pacing in the last quarter of the book felt so fast to me. I loved how quickly things unfolded, though I think I lost the thread of the character arcs for both Genevieve and Ash as they prepared for their big move to save the world and un-pretzel the timeline.

Despite that, I had a lot of fun reading this book. I didn’t realize that Genevieve and Henny’s older sister, Ruby, has her own novel: Murder for the Modern Girl. So I’m definitely adding that one to my reading list.

Definitely check out Kulper’s books if you enjoy a good historical novel with a bit of magical realism or fantasy elements.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 13 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used fairly infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing.

Spiritual Content
Some characters have supernatural abilities, like traveling through time and turning invisible. At the beginning of the story, one character lives in a highly controlling religious cult community.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Two scenes include a person nearly falling to their death. Two scenes include someone nearly drowning. One person dies in the water. Someone collapses with some kind of apparent medical crisis. Reference to death in a fire (not shown on scene).

Misogynistic and racist characters restrict the ability of talented women and people of color to participate in the science field and/or receive credit for their work. References to the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893 and the Indigenous people and people of color incarcerated at the fairgrounds as part of an exhibit. The narrative also acknowledges the fact that certain cultures and people groups were excluded from exhibits on progress and science.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: Silenced Voices by Pablo Leon

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Silenced Voices: Reclaiming Memories from the Guatemalan Genocide
Pablo Leon
HarperAlley
Published September 2, 2025

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About Silenced Voices

In this moving intergenerational tale perfect for fans of Messy Roots and Illegal, Eisner-nominated creator Pablo Leon combines historical research of the Dos Erres Massacre with his own experiences as a Guatemalan immigrant to depict a powerful story of family, sacrifice, survival, and hope.

Langley Park, Maryland, 2013.

Brothers Jose and Charlie know very little about the life their mother lived before she came to Maryland. In fact, Clara avoids even telling people she’s from Guatemala. So when Jose grows curious about the ongoing genocide trial of former military leader Efrain Rios Montt, at first the questions he asks Clara are shut down—he and Charlie were born here, after all, and there’s no reason to worry about places they haven’t been. But as the trial progresses, Clara begins to slowly open up to her sons about a time in her life that she’s left buried for years.

Dos Erres, Guatemala, 1982.

Sisters Clara and Elena hear about the civil war every day, but the violence somehow seems far away from their small village of Dos Erres, a Q’eqchi Maya community tucked away in the mountains of Guatemala. They spend their days thinking of other things—Clara, of gifts to bring her neighbors and how to perfect her mother’s recipes, and Elena, of rock music and her friend Ana, whose family had to flee to the US the year before. But the day the Kaibiles come to Dos Erres and destroy everything in their path, the sisters are separated as they flee through the mountains, leaving them to wonder…Have their paths diverged forever?

My Review

Kudos to authors like Pablo Leon who draw attention to important parts of recent history. The story begins in 2013 and shows the two brothers and their mother living in Maryland. As Jose becomes curious about his mother’s life in Guatemala and the Montt’s trial for genocide, we begin to see scenes from Clara and Elena’s lives as young women fleeing the violence.

The graphic panels keep the story moving, showing the characters’ emotional reactions and allowing readers to fill in some of what’s left unsaid about the terror and injustice they face. The story shifts between the past and present timeline smoothly. I didn’t find it confusing.

The author includes facts about Montt’s trial and the frustrating outcome. It also helps to add context to reasons people immigrate from places like Guatemala and how the U.S. involvement sometimes exacerbates instability in the region. Both the discussion about the real history and the context of these events when considering current issues like immigration are important. I love that this book offers this story inspired by real events as a graphic novel, making it very accessible to teen readers.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
References to genocide and warfare. Racist statements against indigenous people.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I borrowed a copy of this book from the library. All opinions are my own.

Review: A Matter of Murder by Tirzah Price

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A Matter of Murder (A Lizzie & Darcy Mystery #2)
Tirzah Price
Storytide
Published November 11, 2025

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About A Matter of Murder

The thrilling conclusion to the Lizzie & Darcy Mysteries duology, following Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Darcy from the Jane Austen Murder Mysteries series!

A Bingley family curse looms over Lizzie’s sister and Darcy’s best friend—but are the dark forces at work supernatural or human?

Lizzie Bennet’s beloved sister Jane has just married Darcy’s best friend, Bingley, and the Bennet family and Darcy are paying the newlyweds a visit at Bingley’s family home, Netherfield Park. It doesn’t take long for their country retreat to turn into an investigation, though, when a long-dead body is discovered stuffed up the parlor chimney.

The locals are convinced that Netherfield is cursed, but Lizzie and Darcy know better than to believe in such nonsense and are determined to uncover the truth about what happened to the mysterious man in the chimney. But as they dig deeper into the history of Netherfield Park, they find that danger is waiting for them around every corner. Soon enough, they’re forced to consider if the curse might have some merit to it, or if there’s something—or someone—far more sinister behind their near brushes with death….

This duology closer is a daring and delightful conclusion to the chronicles of supersleuths Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Darcy!

My Review

More cozy mysteries featuring Jane Austen characters! Yet again, I find that this book arrived in my life at just the right moment. It was a joy to read this. The writing is smooth, so I flew through the pages. The characters are engaging, and the setting enjoyable.

If you’re a stickler for your historical fiction *sounding* like historical fiction… the writing here might feel too modern for you, especially if you are looking for something written more like the original work. But if you simply need more adventures with Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy at the helm, you definitely want to check out this series.

This is the second book in the “Lizzie and Darcy Murder Mysteries” duology, so if you’re new to this story universe, start with Pride and Premeditation by Tirzah Price, which is part of her “Jane Austen Murder Mysteries” series. (Sense and Second-degree Murder is still my favorite!) From there, you’ll want to pick up In Want of a Suspect, which is book one in the spin-off duology.

I especially love that the author offers Charlotte Lucas, who is a biracial woman in this reimagining of the story, an alternate, happier romance. I will always love the original story and respect Charlotte’s pragmatism, but I love that this story offers her the happiness she deserves.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity a few times. I love Georgiana Darcy’s response to this.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing.

Spiritual Content
References to attending Anglican church services. At one point, a character wonders whether another is. *gasp* a Catholic.

Violent Content
Mr. Darcy discovers a body (sort of a mummified skeleton) in the fireplace flue. He examines the clothes and personal items the murder victim carried as well as noting evidence of a head injury. (Later, characters briefly recount a recap of what happened to this person.) A heavy object falls from above, seriously injuring someone. Someone kidnaps a character and holds two people hostage in exchange for another’s cooperation. Someone fires a handgun at another person. References to someone being sentenced to hanging. (Not shown on scene.)

Drug Content
Adult characters drink alcohol occasionally. One character appears drunk at a funeral.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.