Beginning in the late 1980s, northern Nigeria saw a boom in popular fiction written in the Hausa language.

Known as littattafan soyyaya ("love literature"), the books are often inspired by Hindi films--which have been hugely popular among Hausa speakers for decades--and are primarily written by women. They have sparked a craze among young adult readers as well as a backlash from government censors and book-burning conservatives.

Sin Is a Puppy That Follows You Home is an Islamic soap opera complete with polygamous households, virtuous women, scheming harlots, and black magic.

It's the first translation of a soyayya novel to be published internationally.

And it's quite unlike anything you've ever read before.