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
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.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR * BOSTON GLOBE *
The Chicago Public Library * KIRKUS REVIEWS
Four starred reviews!
The world building is gorgeous, the creatures are vivid and Hartman is
a masterful storyteller. Pick up this novel, and savor every page.
--Paste Magazine
