Heart-y Reading: Juliet Dove, Queen of Love by Bruce Coville

For a painfully shy middle-school girl, nothing could be worse than having dozens of boys madly mooning over her, but that's Juliet's predicament in this installment in Bruce Coville's Magic Shop series, titled Juliet Dove, Queen of Love

Juliet Dove is a budding poet with plenty of word power in her quiver, but so self conscious that she can only speak out when backed into a corner. When two snippy girls from her class start to diss her, Juliet fires back with the sharp tongue which has earned her the name "Killer" around her home town of Venus Harbor. Embarrassed, Juliet dashes down a side street and finds herself standing before an interesting little store, Elives Magic Shop.

Inside the quaint little place, the strangely intense woman behind the counter urges a beautiful amulet upon her. It's free, but the forceful woman tells her "Speak of this to no one." Mystified, Juliet fastens the chain around her neck the next morning and heads off to school. The results are immediate. The boys in her class can't keep their eyes off her. They try to carry her books, pass her love notes, and beg to sit with her at lunch. Juliet is sure there's some strange power in this necklace.

From that point on Juliet finds herself enmeshed in the world's oldest romance, that of Cupid and Psyche. Juliet's task is to find a way to release Cupid, trapped inside the amulet, reunite the mythic lovers, and defeat the evil plans of Eris, goddess of anger and discord who has been let loose upon the earth. Helped by two wisecracking talking rats and occasional boosts from the weakened but sympathetic Greek goddesses Hera, Athena, and at last Aphrodite, Juliet defeats Eris and, although she gives up the powers of the love token, gains her own voice and finds she has considerable charm of her own in the course of the struggle.

Like Jennifer, the heroine of Jennifer Murdley's Toad, Juliet learns that she's got some pretty potent powers of her own waiting inside of her. Her adventures persuade her to break out of her shyness and use her own good qualities and talents to overcome whatever the world throws at her. The self-esteem theme is soft pedaled, however, and readers will love the many twists and turns of plot which make this a thumping-good fantasy adventure story--and pre-Valentine's Day read.