In the medieval kingdom of Goredd, women are expected to be ladies, men are their protectors, and dragons can be whomever they choose. Tess is none of these things. Tess is. . . different. She speaks out of turn, has wild ideas, and can't seem to keep out of trouble. Then Tess goes too far. What she's done is so disgraceful, she can't even allow herself to think of it. Unfortunately, the past cannot be ignored. So Tess's family decide the only path for her is a nunnery.
But on the day she is to join the nuns, Tess chooses a different path for herself. She cuts her hair, pulls on her boots, and sets out on a journey. She's not running away, she's running towards something. What that something is, she doesn't know. Tess just knows that the open road is a map to somewhere else--a life where she might belong.
Returning to the spellbinding world of the Southlands she created in the award-winning, New York Times bestselling novel Seraphina, Rachel Hartman explores self-reliance and redemption in this wholly original fantasy.--from the publisher
544 pages 978-1101931288 Ages 13 and up
Review:
Award-winning Rachel Hartman's newest YA is a tour de force and an exquisite fantasy for the #metoo movement.
"Tess of the Road is astonishing and perfect. It's the most compassionate book I've read since George Eliot's Middlemarch." --NPR
***** "The novel deals frankly with sexuality and sexual violence, both in the slow unfolding of the events that disgraced Tess in her family’s eyes—her rape, pregnancy, and the death of her premature baby when she was fourteen—and in the healing relationship she has toward the end of her travels. Neither Tess nor the novel is defined by her trauma, though; her story is also a rousing adventure set in a richly drawn world, and the novel’s conclusion sets up a sequel that promises to have every bit as much excitement, and a healthy dose of political intrigue as well."--from Bulletin
