Many of you may know Hartman's prior novel Seraphina, but I, on the other hand, haven't had the chance to read it myself. Despite this, and despite both books being set in the same world, I was glad to discover that I never felt out of place or lost while reading this. Although the plot itself was rather slow and uneventful for me, and I felt as if there could have been a little more immersion into this wonderful, dragon-filled world, I especially liked Tess. I liked that Tess didn't immediately call for sympathy from the reader, but that never stopped her. She had a certain unlikeableness that just drew the reader in, and I really wanted to see where she would end up. I thought Harman did a good job with the topic of rape culture, but I also felt as if there was some grit missing, and maybe some more healing. Tess certainly earned her sympathy and heroic status, and I think she's a strong female character that younger girls would like to look up towards.

I never expected to be accepted for this ARC tbh, I'm still so surprised!! I think this was both my first big 5 ARC and the first time I've read a book the YEAR before it's published. I was also so excited for this book ever since I heard about it because I loved Seraphina. Actually, I went back and reread Seraphina and Shadow Scale after I finished this and everything makes so much more sense honestly.

I wholeheartedly loved this book; the plot, the writing, the characters, the worldbuilding, all of these were astounding. (ALSO uhhhh confirmed polyamory between some characters from Seraphina, I loved it and cried a little :'). ) Tess of the Road also covers so many issues that I personally have not seen much in the fantasy genre. It covers topics such as having to change your mindset after years of being constantly told that you aren't enough, finding yourself, and healing after past traumas. (tw: rape mention throughout the book [although implied] and this review)

After successfully getting her sister betrothed, Tess is happy to leave her family behind and live with her sister after she gets married. But she ruins it, like she ruins everything (or so she's told), so she runs away and meets her childhood friend, a quigutl. They go off on an adventure to find a Great Serpent although they run into several obstacles along the way.

Tess of the Road, at its heart, is about faith and lack thereof. While not religious, I've always been fascinated by people's faith, how they can believe in something so wholeheartedly, and this book surprised me. Tess is dealing with her own faith, so to speak, even though the world knows the truth about the Saints (spoilers for Seraphina, so I don't want to say). Her mother devoutly quotes the few saints that preached about sin; basically she polices Tess over her entire life, guilting her about her "bad" decisions. Feeling stifled, Tess rebels, which turns out badly for her, so then she feels this need to make up for her sins and be the girl her mother always wanted her to be. And when she can't stand it again? She runs away, this time resigned to the fact that she is a bad person, having basically been told that her entire life.

On the road, Tess realizes how wrong her mother was. What I loved about Rachel Hartman's writing is that she doesn't demonize religion here, even after Tess rejects all of the preachings of her childhood. She comes across a nun in a hospice, and she expects her to judge Tess for her sins. Unexpectedly, though, the nun doesn't. Instead she helps Tess recognize that, even though she's been told she's a bad person all her life, she is good; that just because she doesn't follow the teachings of a couple of saints doesn't mean that she's a sinner. This religious person helps Tess in her journey, rather than confirming her fears of being an inherently bad person, which was a surprise to me.

Along the way of coming to terms with herself, Tess also begins to actually believe in something. The Great Serpent she and her friend are seeking is wholly a quigutl belief. Despite living in a world with dragons and quigutls, the humans and dragons believe that the Great Serpents are myths and that the quigutls foolishly believe in a story. This, essentially, is the opposite of the religion of Tess's life, and her faith in this "story" again helps her to find her real self, not the person that she's been told she is.

The quigutl beliefs are a wonderful part of the worldbuilding. The stories build on the world we were introduced to in Seraphina and show us a completely different side of it. Some of the things were confusing, yet made sense, like the contradictory -utl suffix. We live in a world of oxymorons and paradoxes, and Hartman really captures this with GRAMMAR! I loved it so much; even though it was such a small detail, it adds so much to this world we journey to.

One thing I was wary of was the romance. I was really just caught off guard by it, but it helped Tess to heal after her first "romance," so I wasn't entirely put off of it. Also, the ending still left a couple of unraveled threads, so I'm honestly holding out for a sequel, but there probably won't be one. It does end nicely, albeit unexpectedly, and I'm content with where we leave off.

Tess of the Road was an incredible read; it covers topics that we so rarely get in the fantasy genre. We can all see a little of ourselves in Tess, and as we follow her along her journey on the Road, we can find ourselves healed with her. While you don't necessarily have to read Seraphina and Shadow Scale before reading this book, it helps with the background. Tess of the Road is an astonishing, breathtaking, wondrous gem of a book, one that I can't wait to read again.

It's been a long while since I've read Seraphina, and while I loved that one, the sequel wasn't as good, so I was a bit more open minded when I began this book. Since it's been so long since I've read the others, I'd forgotten nearly everything, and reading Tess' book brought a lot of it back.

You don't need to read Seraphina first, but it does a better job explaining the world and the creatures and cultures living there. Tess' book doesn't explain as much, and you'll waste time trying to figure it all out.

Tess is a great narrator. She's a mischievous overly active girl in a world where women must be seen and not heard. She's been repressed most of her life, and she's now trying to figure out who she really is, without the overbearing reign of her parental figures. So it's a self-discovery book, but the characters are well developed, and the book kept me up way into the night, so I'd say it's well-written too.

First off, readers should be aware that this isn't a "clean" book. There's a lot in here about women's bodies, child-bearing, and relations. It's not a dirty romance book, but I would suggest caution before recommending this to young children. On the other hand, this is a well-written cautionary tale of what can go wrong when people go Too Far, which is great for YA.

That aside, this is a great book. Hartman struck gold again in the great female character department. This is girl focused, and boys are the bad guys here. Like, really bad. I'm really impressed with the way Hartman depicted the position of women in a male dominated world. I love Tess' attitude, the way she never truly gives up on being herself, even when everyone around her demands otherwise.

This isn't so much a book about magic or dragons or any of the typical fantasy genres out there. I mean, it has that in the world, but this is mostly about a girl rising above abuse, figuring out who she is, and overcoming several traumatic episodes from her past. It's a fantasy alright, but it's a fresh breath of wind to the genre.

This kind of reminds me of Huckleberry Finn - it's that episodic way it's written - like every town on Tess' road is another episode, another place to relieve a memory, fix something in the present, and keep walking on.

Again, it's not the typical fantasy book, but I really recommend it.

Disclaimer: I received an advance copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I don't like to read reviews before I've jotted down my own impressions of a book, though I usually cast my eyes rapidly down the Goodreads column, picking out words here and there. While doing that to this book, I got more whiplash than usual: superlatives in one chunk of text would be followed by "bored" "hated" "impossible" and the like.

I guess I can see that. My own impression of this book, which I finished a few days ago, and have been contemplating since, is "a glorious mess."

Things I liked: the dragon creatures and their anarchic, truly weird, customs and outlook and (rather gross) physicality.

I liked Tess's entire arc. It's an earned arc. I might have misgivings about how we got there, but when we arrived it was so satisfying, and the underlying emotional damage resonated with soul-damaging truth. (view spoiler)

I loved the writing, with its closely observed bits of human behavior, contributing to complexity. (And some really nifty turns of phrase, with only one grammar bobble in the entire thing, so rare!) Hartman writes with such rich, wild imagery, and zings of humor when one least expects it.

I loved the nuns we met later in the book, including older women with refreshingly acerb and practical outlook, while squarely placed in the given worldview. These are not twenty-first century Americans shoehorned into a fake-fantasy world with a religion specifically designed to be horrible. (Though at first it read that way.)

Which brings me to stuff I had trouble with. (view spoiler)

But these are all highly subjective reactions, which I hesitate to call flaws. Which is why I think of the book as an eminently readable, insightful, glorious mess.

Hartman's prose is just as captivating and lyrical as with her debut Seraphina. This story draws you in and lingers.

Just finished "Tess of the Road" by Rachel Hartman, thanks to an ARC from Netgalley. A very interesting , enjoyable story about a young girl ,the troublemaker of her family, trying to find her way in the world. This fantasy adventure story follows Tess as she travels the world with her childhood friend, a quigutl--a subspecies of dragon, as he goes on a quest. Anxiously waiting for the next book in the series so I can go with Tess on the next part
of her adventure!

Post review to blog in December 2018: Rachel Hartman's breakout novel from 2012 was Seraphina, a phenomenal work of fantasy about a half-dragon trying to come to terms with her heritage in a world where humans and dragon have an uneasy truce. A sequel to that novel, Shadow Scale, continued Seraphina's story. Seraphina had a pair of twin younger sisters, Jeanne and Tess Dombegh, who received a few mentions. In 2018's Tess of the Road, Hartman allows Tess to come to the forefront. Despite Serahpina's rise and rank on the court, her father has lost his law license and the family has struggled. Jeanne is seen as the family's best chance to marry a suitable rich member of court, and Tess throws her energy into finding a match. Tess, however, is angry, drunk, and combative nearly all the time, and suffers crippling self doubt. Feeling trapped into a life with no opportunity, and with a bit of a push from Seraphina, Tess hits that road with little more than a new pair of sturdy boots. She quickly stumbles upon an old friend, a quigutl named Pathka whose life Tess had saved in the tunnels below her house years before. Together, they head south to search for creatures out of myth called the World Serpents. Hartman spends the first third of the book building Tess's difficult world, including her rocky relationship with a mother who blames Tess for everything. With Pathka's appearance, the novel hits it stride and Tess feels a higher purpose for perhaps the first time in her life. At first Tess steals and lies to survive, then discovers the joy of working physical jobs to get by. Ultimately, Tess of the Road is a journey into one's self, a coming of age story that shows a leap in maturity as one deals with the immense pain of the past. The question with any companion book is how important is it to have read the anchor text in order to appreciate the companion? In this case, Tess can be read as a stand-alone. Hartman provides just enough information about Seraphina's backstory and distant relationship to Tess that the major backstory gets told without being in the way. Tess herself has plenty of flashbacks to fill in her own backstory, including her history with Will, her first love and someone she's avoided thinking about to avoid both the pain of loss and the truth of what really happened. This is a definite purchase for any high school library with (or without) an active fantasy section.

In Tess of the Road, by Rachel Hartman, women are expected to be ladies, men are their protectors, and dragons get to be whomever they want. Tess sets out to instantly subvert this order of things as soon as she can, and of course has many great adventures on the way as she comes of age on the Road. 

Tess of the Road opened with a young Tess attempting to marry her twin sister Jeanne to their cousin/uncle Kenneth in an effort to discover how babies are made. It neatly transitioned into Tess, years older and (maybe) wiser, still marrying her sister off, although she's already discovered how babies are made firsthand. Then, the real story began. 

Tess promptly ruins the wedding and upsets everyone and takes the social disaster as the perfect opportunity to walk away from it all, prompted by the gift of a spectacular pair of boots. Along the Road, Tess finds new friends and old, and has a variety of adventures that unlock new facets of herself, all while pretending to anyone but who she really is, but most often, Brother Jacomo. 

Overall, I liked the concept of this novel and, the more I think about it, I both admire and love the fact that Rachel Hartman tackled some truly thorny topics in this book (many of which were made even more relevant but the constant political train wreck of current US politics). She tackles consent and rape, teenage motherhood, and the hard task of confronting your own demons, whether you created them or not. This I all found to be extremely admirable and respect the hell out of Hartman for doing it.

However, I thought the execution itself did not always live up to the great task at hand. The story often dragged on, and the plot sometimes seemed to disappear entirely as Tess meandered down her Road, only "walking on" and not doing a whole lot else. Plots would get picked up and abandoned, only to be halfway tied up many chapters later. And, during moments that could have been poignant, I felt as though the novel slipped into a bad habit of telling us that Tess had grown in that moment, rather than showing her growth as it had happened. This trend in particular was awfully distressing to me--I liked Tess and wanted to work through her revelations with her, rather than having her accomplishments listed after the fact. 

Perhaps if I had read Seraphina first, I would have enjoyed Tess more. Alas, I discovered Tess first, so here we are (although I did buy Seraphina the other day, and am looking forward to starting it!). It may also have been that this was advertised as a Teens & YA book, and wasn't quite expecting the kick in the feels that came with it. Whatever the root cause, Tess of the Road was not my favorite read, but definitely brought up some very important topics nonetheless. 

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the Advanced Copy! 

Tess of the Road, written by Rachel Hartman, will be published on February 27th, 2018 by Random House Books for Young Readers.

I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'm not quite sure how to feel about Tess of the Road. It's not that I didn't like it. I did enjoy going back into the kingdom of Goredd that Hartman had introduced us to in Seraphina. It's just that I don't think I was expecting this book to have the focal point that it did.

The synopsis seems to focus more on the adventure of the road as she teams up with Pasha, a subspecies of dragon called a quigutl that should be familiar to those who've read Hartman's other books. However, as the book slowly reveals Tess's past, the reader comes to find out that the adventure is more about finding herself and her place in the world. Her philosophy on life becomes more about The Road, about the journey to find what is her meaning in life.

Tess had a hard life growing up. Seraphina was her perfect older step-sister, even though she was half-dragon. Jeanne, Tess's twin, was the embodiment of goodness and Tess, well, she was a child who was meant to be spanked. She was constantly finding herself in trouble and, as the story goes along, we find out just how much trouble she has gotten into throughout her seventeen years. The event that leads to her to the road involves punching a priest in the nose on her sister's wedding night, if that gives you an idea of what type of person she is.

Her tale is interwoven with her adventures on The Road and is revealed slowly, which may be boring to some, but I thought Hartman wrote beautifully and managed to reveal just enough, especially since Tess was slowly coming to terms with each event in her life as her journey progressed. She meets quite a few people on the road and, as we come to find out, she leaves an imprint on their life in some form or another.

Pasha, the quigutl, plays an important role as well. Pasha is going on their own journey, a different path than Tess's, even though they're traveling together.

Eventually, Tess's whole story is revealed in time for her to realize that she has made progress as a person from the drunk priest-punching seamstress from the beginning chapters. It makes for an interesting read, though, I wish there was a bit more fantastical elements to it. However, Hartman does create a world where the fantasy is barely brushed upon, as we see in <i>Seraphina.</i>

If you've read Seraphina, I'd recommend this book to delve back into Hartman's world. Even if you haven't, I think this book stands well enough on its own. Though, there are characters and references that hail back to the other two books, I don't think a newcomer will be too confused as this is specifically Tess's story.

Tess of the Road was not the easy breezy, fun and light read I thought it was going to be. It was packed full of sentiment, wisdom and a story that truly makes you want to sit back and reflect on it for a few days. It features a strong female heroine who is very human and easily relatable. She is a little rought around the edges, argumentative, stubborn and sometimes a bit rude but also courageous, strong willed and an all around good person. This book is light on the fantasy aspect and focuses more heavily on the road to self discovery Tess must take to find her true self in the face of so much uncertainty in her crazy world.
I had heard a lot of good things about the authors previous book, Seraphina, so I was really interested in getting my hands on this book and giving it a try. It was not at all what I expected but at the same time it exceeded those expectations.
If you want and action packed fantasy novels filled with magic and dragons, this may not be exactly what you had in mind. If you want something based in a magical world but focusing on real issues and is also thought provoking then I advise you to give this one a shot!

I actually couldn't finish reading this book.

I was so, so disappointed because I really wanted to like it, the blurb got my attention the second I read it, but as soon as I started, I lost all interest. The book itself is really slow, I got to 30% and nothing, absolutely nothing had happened, other than her horrible mother being a nasty woman.

I truly tried, I just couldn't find anything to keep me going :(

I received this ARC copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. So thank you netgalley and publishers.
I have never read from this author before but I've heard a lot about her and was told her books are amazing... with that being said, if thought this book was going to be filled with dragons, adventure, and secrets. Turns out it has a lot of walking, no adventure, and me contemplating whether I wanted to finish this book or not. In the kingdom of Goredd, women are expected to be ladies while men are their protectors, and dragons get to be whoever they want. Tess had an incident by almost ruining her sister's wedding by breaking an in-law's nose, so her parents decide they have had enough and arrange to have her admitted to a nunnery. Before it can happen, Tess  decides to run away and she happens to find a childhood friend,  who gives her both a purpose and protection on the road.  The cover is stunning and actually is what drew me originally into the story even before I found out what the book was about. I liked Tess. She always tried to do right by her family but always managed to somehow "screw things up" because, no matter how much her parents tried, she just can't fit the mold they wanted to stuff her in. I found her very relatable ♡  There was always ongoing tension between her and her parents. The entire pacing of the story was so slow! I kept wondering when the action was going to happen. It was a decent read but not my favorite, it had a lot of potential, it just didn't live up to it for me :/
I give it a 3.5 star rating..

I was lucky enough to be given an arc of this book from Netgalley and THANK GOODNESS THEY CHOSE ME!

I was actually really nervous they wouldn't. I adored the Seraphina books. Head over heels in love with Hartman's writing style, especially just the immense amount of world building that went into Seraphina so I was thrilled to see Tess of the Road was becoming a thing and OH MY GOSH I was *not* let down.

What Hartman started with world building and ended in really poignant character profiles began a new here and fed so much life into Tess of the road. The cast of characters is much smaller this time around and just the amount that we get to see of Tess' inner life was brilliant.

This is one of those books that aches. You feel it aching. You feel Tess and relate so bitterly to her even if you've never experienced her sorrows. Never once did I feel like this book's characters relationships were flat or their motivations inauthentic.

It dawned on me towards the end of the book that this was one of the realest books i'd ever had the pleasure of reading, and it was all set in a world with dragons.

I can't recommend Tess of the Road enough.

(DNF at 25%)
I can say the writing was great but the story was not for me. It was difficult to continue on as the story was very slow and the characters were not interesting
I would like to mention that I looked into several other reviews and it seems, if you have read Hartman's previous work you would better understand the world in Tess of the Road.

** spoiler alert ** wow this book was fantasy but had some things that are happening here now. I loved that dragons were apart of this book and that we got to see some of the other characters from Saraphina. I loved her journey to finding herself and some romance in the book. I'm not usually a fan of a girl dressing like a boy, but this book was good. I didn't want the journey to end. I loved that we got to see what happened with Seraphina and her romance. So much real life here with trans, rape, and family, childbirth, and other real-life issues. Loved it

[Disclaimer: I received a free e-copy of this book from NetGalley for review purposes.]

I really loved Hartman's first book in this world, Seraphina. There was a lot to love about Phina, and a lot to learn about the dragons. In Tess of the Road, we see Phina from a different angle, and it's not quite so lovely. In fact, I think that's why I wasn't as thrilled with this book as I was with Seraphina.

In Tess of the Road, we get the story from Tess's POV. Tess is the younger half-sister of Seraphina, and while she played only a minor part in the first book, this is the beginning of her story. And it's not a pleasant one. Tess is an alcoholic, scarred by a romance-gone-wrong which has left her "sullied," a fallen woman, who then has to pretend to be the younger twin so that her real younger twin, Jeanne, can get married first and bring the family back to prosperity.

I feel for her, really I do. She has experienced tragedy like I could never imagine. And it is understandable why she hates her life - I hate her life. And I hate pretty much everyone in it, including Phina. That's what bothered me - one of the characters I had grown to love in another book, I was essentially told to hate in this one. She's pictured as cold, annoying, superior, and generally unable to feel anything for anyone. That doesn't completely jive with the character I got to know.

Also, there was a LOT going on in this book. Once Tess runs away from home (which we all know she's going to do, because otherwise the book couldn't be named as it is), she goes for a walk. She doesn't think it through. She just knows she's leaving, she has a bag-o-crap to get her along for a few days, and after that it's the glory of open roads and everyone leaving her the heck alone. All of that sounds fantastic, but then she sees men on the road and in the fields, and because of her mother's batshit St. Vitt, she thinks that all of them are going to try to assault her because that's what men do. She goes on like this for a while until she realizes, hey, why don't I become a man too? Then they'll leave me the heck alone.

Now, this trope is pretty overdone. I've read so many books just this year alone that deal with characters who cross-dress because of reasons. Frankly, I'm surprised Tess is believed for a man. She doesn't seem to make attempts to really alter herself other than the clothes she's wearing, and eventually cutting her hair (it is noted a few times that she deliberately pitches her voice down, but honestly, how realistic is that?). I didn't particularly enjoy the whole man thing, and I thought it was completely ridiculous that she used her brother-in-law's name the entire trip through Goredd, as if no one was going to track her down that way.

The slow reveal of Tess's relationship with Will was also drawn out a bit too much. We don't get the whole story until the very end, and I guess you could say that was for character development since by the end she's finally "strong" enough to face what happened to her, but I felt like some of it could have been revealed a little earlier, or at least not in such scattered pieces.

Then we have Tess's development as a person. She sobers up on her trip, and meets up with and rescues an old friend, Pathka, a quigtl (we met those in Seraphina, if you recall). Pathka is on a quest to find Anathuthia, a World Serpent, something of myths and legends and that no one believes is actually real (except Pathka and Tess). So Tess decides to join up with Pathka, go find this giant serpent, and so begins their quest. Tess learns she's a terrible thief, but never thinks to actually work for her food and lodging until much later. She's a little brainless sometimes, never quite thinking things through until it's too late. She rescues an old man, meets the nuns she was supposed to join but ran away from, and poses as "Brother Jacomo" to just about everyone who will listen. She tries to think of herself as a hero, as someone who is strong, but doesn't want to face the hard things about herself and her past. When she finally does, it is very emotional. I admit I teared up a little when she has these major revelations about herself.

But despite the heavy emotions in this book (and they are super heavy), I still didn't love it. Like I mentioned above, there's a lot going on. There are a lot of side-stops, a lot of attempts to find Anathuthia, and a lot of flash-backs while she's trying to find her way. Eventually she's responsible for something very tragic while trying to be a hero, and I'm not quite convinced she truly understands how completely ridiculous she was. The repercussions of what happens towards the end aren't even felt in this book (I'm hoping they will be left for the next book, since there's a pretty big cliffhanger there).

And it made me hate Phina. That sucked.

Good book, but while I loved Seraphina, I didn't love this one. Read if you like a slow burn and a lot of side stories.

It's hard to say what exactly fell flat about Tess. After Seraphina (which I absolutely adored), I expected much of the same beautiful writing and jaunty wit within the same world but new story. Unfortunately, Tess does not live up to that standard. I see where she struggled and her story was interesting, but I think for those who have read Seraphina, the comparisons will obviously be made-and Tess will be found lackluster. With that being said, it was not a bad book from what I read. I got to about 65% before I decided to give up. Tess has her good moments, and Hartman's writing is still enticing and elegantly weaves words into poetry, but perhaps Tess's series is better geared as a standalone. This way, those who have not read Seraphina get the complete background of the world Hartman completely woven instead of bits (albeit a lot of bits) in Tess of the Road. From what I read, I'd put it at a solid 3 stars because while the plot doesn't appeal to me, the writing was still amazing.

I read Seraphina a few years ago and enjoyed it (I gave it a 3/ 5) so I was excited for the chance to read Tess of the Road before it comes out. I was really confused during the beginning of the story. Even though I have read Seraphina I didn’t remember all the details of the characters and culture of the places and this story jumped right in like you should know all that. For someone who hasn’t read Seraphina (or doesn’t remember it well) the story is very hard to follow in the beginning.

I felt so bad for Tess during the first half of the story, her parents were both awful in their own ways and it seemed like no one really cared if she was around other than her twin. I loved that she was determined to set out on her own but the majority of the book is Tess traveling on the road (hence the name of the book) and it really dragged in places. I felt like it took me forever to get back to an exciting plot that I wanted to read.

Tess’s friend the Quigutl is by far my favorite character. He was unique, dynamic, and experienced so much throughout the story. I also loved the mother and son duo who show up in the last third of the book. They both really provide something Tess was missing and were great friends to her.

While the book started slow and confusing the ending was engaging. I loved that Tess finally stood up to her family and we get a little more insight into her twin, who is battling her own problems. I’m interested in seeing where the next book goes and what happens to Tess and her band of misfits.

While I loved Rachel Hartman's other books, this one is my least favorite. The characters, including the main one, were pretty unlikable. It was understandable based on in-story information that they were unpleasant, but still, I didn't enjoy spending my reading about them. I'd still recommend people try it though.

Tess of the Road is the first installment of a new duology set in the world of Seraphina, the doughty half-dragon, half-human heroine of Hartman’s earlier duology.

Tess Dombegh and her fraternal twin Jeanne are step-sisters of Seraphina. They have always exemplified the descriptions given to the three of them: Seraphina: the smart one; Jeanne: the pretty one; and Tess: the “One Who’s Always Been Trouble.”

We first learn about Tess as a small girl and what life is like with her parents. Her father has been disgraced for his earlier liaison (marriage to a dragon in human form was illegal), and her mother remains bitter and has retreated into religious rigidity to cope. She gives constant lectures on the evils of lust and desire, and the roles (very restricted) of women. She harps the sins of the flesh, and on Tess’s perceived sins in particular, all the more blatant since apparently Tess bore a child out of wedlock. (We only learn the details gradually as the story progresses.). Tess has grown up believing she was “singularly and spectacularly flawed, subject to sins a normal girl should never have been prone to.”

Her vinegary mother tells the twins:

“Girls, remember: this mortal, material world will let you down. Husbands, love, life - everything and everyone will disappoint you eventually. Only one thing never fails. Do you know what that is? Heaven.”

When Tess is 16, and Jeanne receives a marriage offer, she is faced with only two options: to live with Jeanne as nursemaid for her children at the home of Jeanne’s new husband and his horrific family, or to enter a convent. Tess doesn’t look forward to either. She longs to have adventures like her childhood hero, the fictional pirate Dozerius.

Tess takes increasingly to drinking, but after one disastrous episode that led to a run-in with Jeanne’s new family, she decided to take off, disguised as a male. At first she is accompanied only by the inner censorious voice of her mother, but eventually she is reunited with her childhood friend Pathka. Pathka is a quigutl, a small species related to dragons.

Pathka asks Tess to help her find Anathuthia, the World Serpent, “the one beneath our continent, the one who will restore us to ourselves.” It was important to Pathka, her oldest friend, that Tess accept, and so she did.

The two have many adventures, indeed, like Dozerius, although Tess gets a new outlook on her old hero as they travel along their road. Tess wants to bite him, which is a concept among quigutl that enables someone who hurts to find forgiveness. But there is another she wants to bite too: “‘What do you do, Pathka,’” Tess half whispered, ‘if the person you most desperately need to bit is yourself?’” Pathka explains to Tess how it is done, and it’s really not so far from a human concept.

Tess also learns some life lessons from a nun she meets on the road, Mother Philomela. The nun tells her that both guilt and love can carry a person a long way, but your own two feet can take you farther than either of them:

“We’re all on this road, metaphorically. . . . “

She also tells Tess that the religious strictures under which she was raised are just wrong. “The body is innocent,” she insists. And children are not born evil. But “goodness withers when it is continuously ground underfoot. We fulfill our parents’ direst prophecies, then curl around our own pain until we can’t see beyond ourselves. You want to walk on? Walk out of that shadow. Walk, girl. . . . “Walk on, yes, but don’t walk past people who need you. Uncurl yourself, so you can see them and respond.”

In other words, the past is never really past, unless you can learn to bite it and move on.

Tess has a decision to make, about how she can finally be the hero of her own story, and whether guilt or love will hold her back.

Evaluation: I loved this story, and its portrayal both metaphorical and literal of the road to healing. And I loved meeting another worthy young female heroine who will make a great role model for girls. I can't wait for the next book!