Lotte is eight years old when her parents are divorced, and soon after, her father moves in with his new girlfriend and her two children. Lotte’s mother is grief-stricken and angry, and Lotte finds herself in a warzone, torn between her parents, and she is fighting hard to create a place for herself in this new and chaotic reality. Luckily, she is going to her grandparents’ farm for the whole summer, and for a while, she finds solace in the company of the animals and the mountains. But no summer can last forever.

Set in the 60s, when a divorce was far more stigmatizing occurrence than today, “A Tiger for an Angel” foreshadows many of the themes that have later become the hallmark of Ragde’s writing: The conflict between traditional life on small farms and the modern reality of the emerging suburbs, and the loneliness and difficult communication that can so often be found within a family.