Carol Devine Carson: A Venetian Affair

From Knopf, 2003. The image is a very tight crop of a Velasquez painting. This is a true story of the author's discovery of a cache of 18th Century love letters between a noble ancestor and a lower-class woman. "As their courtship unfolds, they plot elaborate marriage schemes that offend everyone, arrange secret trysts in borrowed rooms, cause trouble for the servants who must ferry their forbidden correspondence, and even weather an unwanted pregnancy, from which Giustiniana, with her wits and ingenuity and some crucial assistance from the infamous Casanova, emerges unscathed." (Publisher's Description)

I think this is so striking because the hand and letter are naturally set against a black background by the painter, who has isolated them with brilliant lighting. And I love the red rectangle.