Books

Notable: From the heart

By COLETTE BANCROFT
Published February 11, 2007

With Valentine's Day coming up Wednesday, here are three new books with very different takes on love.

- Plum Lovin' (St. Martin's, $16.95) is a "between the numbers" novella in Janet Evanovich's wildly successful series about New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum. Even fluffier than Evanovich's usual yummy brain candy, this book entangles Steph's already baroque love life even more and sets her to the unlikely task of matchmaking. Publishers' Weekly calls it "tart and hilarious."

- Letters to Juliet (Stewart, Tabori and Chang, $24.95), by sisters Lise Friedman and Ceil Friedman, focuses on one of the great romantic figures of literature and history. For 70 years, volunteers in Verona, Italy, have read and answered thousands of letters written to Juliet, who lived and is buried there. Many are reprinted in this book, which also has recipes, photos and stationery for sending your own missive.

- Heart-Shaped Box (William Morrow, $24.95) is neither a Nirvana song nor a pound of chocolates, but the first novel by Joe Hill. Aging rock star Jude Coyne collects macabre oddities, such as a used hangman's noose, so when he sees a ghost offered for sale online, he snaps it up. Turns out the ghost is real, and he's looking for Jude, whom he blames for his stepdaughter's suicide. Publishers' Weekly calls the book a "subtle and skillful treatment of horrors," which Hill might well have learned around the house growing up: He's the elder son of Stephen King.

Colette Bancroft, Times book editor

[Last modified February 9, 2007, 11:09:16]