

Bryce Davidson married into the Barber family and has never quite stood straight under the weight of it. On New Year's Day, his wife Ginny leaves to collect relatives and asks him to bathe their infant with a towel. Out of some small, stubborn impulse he fills the bathtub instead. The phone rings. He looks away. By the time he looks back, it is too late. In his collapse he hides what happened. He conceals the baby,covers the room, holds himself together through the Barber family's New Year visit. Every attempt by the relatives to see the child Bryce deflects. Ginny watches him, and something in the way he moves begins to pull at her. She can feel the shape of a closed door. She moves toward it.

Centuries-old tiger demon Mavis Hoover is cast down to the mortal realm by Heaven to experience the complexities of human emotions. She awakens to find herself reborn as a vicious stepmother. To complete her trial, she learns to become a virtuous wife and mother, fiercely protecting her children, earning money to support the family, and even rooting out traitors. Through her daily interactions with her family, the once-aloof tiger demon gradually begins to understand true human feelings and eventually finds genuine love with her husband, Leon Saul.