The maxim "don't judge a book by its cover" has its own homely wisdom. But one can't help being drawn to books that have been beautifully and carefully designed to optimize their success in a crowded market (and perhaps to show off the superior ability of a talented book designer).

Three book jackets recently caught my attention. The first features a wistful black line drawing against a brown background of a Gibson Girl type, with sad, downward-looking eyes and rosebud lips glistening in an almost babyish pout. In the far right corner of the jacket is a small World War I photograph of soldiers in march formation, presumably before deployment overseas. One assumes this is serious "fiction." So Charity Girl called to me immediately from its place on the bookstore shelf.

The second book I had seen before — a paperback with a bright-colored, retro look similar to stylish gay greeting cards. I loved the high-concept cover with its solid though sophisticated coloration. In bold letters, the title, Hard Sauce, was emblazoned on the front. How could that not be intriguing?

And the third book, with a hot, photographic cover of two men embracing, snugly wrapped in towels, was the new William J. Mann novel , Men Who Love Men. Oh, my.

Judging by a cover. My bad.

Charity Girl (Houghton Mifflin), the third novel by gay writer Michael Lowenthal (The Same Embrace), is an historical novel set during World War I in Boston. Seventeen-year-old Frieda Mintz is a lively, pretty Jewish girl who has left behind her family and an arranged marriage to an older, successful man to make it on her own. The independent Frieda works at Boston 's mega department store, Jordan Marsh, in the lingerie department. And like other working girls with certain charms, she wards off the attention of gift-buying male customers, even though she could use the financial help they could offer.

After a one-night tryst with a personable enlisted man named Felix, Frieda contracts a "social disease." Like girls of that time, she is sequestered after discovery of her condition. At this time in American history, there was a social stigma attached to sexually-transmitted diseases: "charity girls like her are just as bad — no worse than prostitutes," she realizes. In fact, Frieda is housed with other women, including some actual prostitutes, in a makeshift detention center located in a former brothel outside Boston to be treated for her STD. What better symbol for the condemning attitude during WWI toward women who had an active sex life.

Lowenthal creates good characters who seem ideal for cinematic treatment: Mrs. Digges, the overbearing detention center matron; Jo, the vulnerable young woman with a shaved head and a secret; Flossie, the humorous, vocal prostitute who constantly craves men; and Lou, Frieda's one true friend at Jordan Marsh. The men in this novel don't fare too well. There's Felix, the privileged Jewish man who gives Frieda the gift that keeps on giving; the needy, financially solvent widower, Mr. Hirsch, to whom Frieda's mother tries to marry her off; and the puffed-up senator who visits the incarcerated women during his political stomping tour.

Illustrating the historical fact that nearly 15,000 women with STDs were incarcerated in similar conditions — prostitutes as well as the merely careless — Lowenthal brings this story alive in Frieda's engaging story. Her only misfortune seems to be sexual ignorance. Yet Frieda's stay at the detention center — though it does cure her of the disease — doesn't leave her pristine: "She'll always feel sullied: for having come to see the world in all its grubby dealing; for having, herself, trafficked in mistrust."

This is one of the year's standout novels, its heart and substance, as well as its cover, truly memorable.

Hot Sauce (Warner) is a quick, romantic read from Scott Pomfret and Scott Whittier, creators of the Romentics series. Set in Boston, this is the story of a restaurateur/celebrity chef and a fashion designer, whose lives are stylish and sexy. Brad, the chef, can't get Troy to say "I love you," and as they begin work on a joint venture, a possible threat to their hot love nest arrives in the character of Aria Shakespeare, a twinkie with the hots for Troy and the ear of Troy's socialite mother, the icy, irreproachable Caroline. Will Brad and Troy survive this momentary flicker of a flaming twinkie? Will Massachusetts marital bliss be achieved?

Like their counterparts in women's romance novels, the gay romantic scenes are frequent and juicy, and the plotline stays in the realm of fantasy. (There is one particularly hot scene in Troy's superfancy glass shower in his Beacon Hill apartment.) But isn't that what romance writing should be?

And listen to the language: "A tangled destiny like their tangled limbs. Inseparable. Permanent. Forever. He did not know where Troy began, or where he ended. They were one lush, amorphous fever tide of exhausted pleasure." These Scotts are good writers, and they are not aiming for literary sainthood. This hot sauce will make the perfect topping for vacation relaxation.