When we read Little Women, didn’t we all think Jo was Louisa May Alcott herself — independent and spirited? And didn’t we all wonder who really was Laurie — the boy next door who grew into the man Jo loved but could never be with?

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott is Kelly O’Connor McNees’ attempt to answer those questions for curious readers. Steadily and passionately narrated by Emily Janice Card, McNees’ novel takes us back to the summer of 1855 when Louisa met Joseph Singer and made a decision that would change her life — and arguably thousands of “little women’s” lives — forever.

Card’s narration is clear and crisp, like the New England summer mornings. Passionate and quick to change just like Louisa, Card’s voice guides us through our heroine’s joy and torment. Her heart is hopelessly devoted to Joseph and her dear family, but her head is telling her to follow her dream of becoming a writer.

McNees peppers the story with carefully researched references to clothing, food, and other cultural signs of the times to really help us imagine life in Walpole, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1855. Interwoven with references to Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, the novel calls to mind stories by other pioneering female writers about the balance of independence and love — Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence.

History tells us the choice Louisa made, but McNees and Card take us back to the moment it happened, answering for readers of all time, who taught Louisa to love? —Sarah Evans Hogeboom