MADreads

October and the spooky season are just around the corner and I have the book for you. Elly Griffiths' (best known for her Ruth Galloway series of mysteries) Stranger Diaries is suspenseful and even spooky at times (there's even a ghost) and is a gothic book about a gothic story that is being written about for a book. Okay that sounds like nonsense, I know.

Feng-Li Lin and her siblings land in the United States for a dream vacation to visit Disneyland and unexpectedly end up staying forever. They arrive in California with their parents and as soon as they enter customs, there are problems with tourist visas. It starts out with their dad needing to return to Taiwan almost immediately. Then their mother needs to leave with plans to come back shortly. Family friends who immigrated earlier provide support and supervision, but before too long they move away, and the kids are on their own.

What a time to be alive. What a time for poetry that gives life. Rupi Kaur, Nayyirah Waheed, Danez Smith, Ada Limón, Morgan Parker, Tommy Pico, Chen Chen, Kaveh Akbar, Ocean Vuong, Solman Sharif, Mai Der Vang, Yesika Salgado. There is no shortage of new school poets with distinctive viewpoints and a moving way with words. Add Hieu Minh Nguyen, the Minnesotan son of Vietnamese immigrants, to that list.

Nicole Oruwari is living in Lagos with her handsome Nigerian-born husband and his wealthy family when she goes missing. Her auntie Claudine flies from the UK to Nigeria to find out more about what's happened to her niece and uncovers a tangled web of wealth and privilege that leaves readers riveted and surprised. At the heart of the mystery are the "nigerwives," a group of foreign-born women married to Nigerian men who regularly meet and look out for each other.