“Rain Song,” released Oct. 1 by Bethany House, brings chuckles and tears, as the story of a family reunion in Mt. Olive, North Carolina unfolds.

Nicole Michelin, a middle school English teacher and owner of rare tropical fish, struggles with deep concerns about her identity, even while planning the annual family extravaganza with her grandmother, aunts and uncles.

“Rain Song’s” winsome mystery involves a beloved Japanese doll, fragile memories of a home in Kyoto and her mother, who died in a fire when Nicole was a toddler. Her father, a missionary, brought his daughter to the states to be raised by grandmother Ducee.

The antics of a loving, dysfunctional family and the emotions stirred by e-mails from a young man in Japan pull at the reader’s heartstrings and engage our interest until, at the end, we are begging for a sequel.

Wisler’s next book, also set in North Carolina, is, however, not a sequel, but a whole new adventure we will discover when it is published in May.