“Happy birthday, child. Careful not to shoot any grundwirgen.” Ever since she was a small girl, she has learned to be careful on the hunt, to recognize the signs that separate regular animals from human-cursed grundwirgen. To harm a grundwirgen is a crime punishable by death by the King's decree - a fatal mistake that her Auntie Rosa and mother have carefully prepared her to avoid. On her fifteenth birthday, when her mother is arrested and made to stand trial for grundwirgen murder, everything she thought she knew about her family and her past comes crashing down. Auntie Rosa has always warned her about monsters. Now, she must find and confront them to save her mother, no matter the cost.

Xiao Hong travels to her mother's homeland in pursuit of Rosa in the sequel to Hunting Monsters My seventeenth birthday, the day I became a woman in the eyes of the law, my mother sat down at the small table in our cottage and said, “It is time.” It has been two years since Rosa fled the west, walking out on Xiao Hong and Mei, breaking their family. Now that the King's men no longer hunt the grundwirgen killer, Xiao Hong's mother makes the hard decision to return to her homeland to find Rosa and make their family whole again. Xiao Hong, still angry and hurt by her Auntie Rosa's secrets and lies, must decide whether or not she will join her mother's quest. Xu Meng Jiao grew up knowing his mother was a demon, and that he must save her. Meng Jiao has lived in the shadow of his parents for his entire life. The child of a human father and snake demon mother, he has vowed to become the best possible student, scholar, and son he can be—in the hopes of saving his mother from her imprisonment. Two paths collide in Fighting Demons, as Xiao Hong and Meng Jiao come to terms with their parents, their families, and find their place in the world.

When Rosa (aka Red Riding Hood) and Hou Yi the Archer join forces to stop the deadly sunbirds from ravaging the countryside, their quest will take the two women, now blessed and burdened with the hindsight of middle age, into a reckoning of sacrifices made and mistakes mourned, of choices and family and the quest for immortality.