Tess of the Road

Tess of the Road is a 2018 fantasy novel by Rachel Hartman and a companion to her earlier books Seraphina and Shadow Scale. It follows Tess Dombegh, a younger sister of Seraphina, and although some characters from the earlier novels appear, it is not a direct sequel but the start of a new duology. It was published by Random House on 27 February 2018.

The book was nominated for the 2018 Andre Norton Award and the 2018 Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book, and the sequel, In the Serpent's Wake, was published in 2022.

Tess's problem is that she has broken one of those rules in a way she cannot bear to name. Rather than accept the nunnery, she takes to the road with no fixed destination and looks for a life in which she might belong, which is why the novel is structured as a journey away from a decision rather than towards one. The record moves between fantasy and romance categories, because the journey includes the possibility of a relationship, but the book's main subject is the move from shame towards self-accounting.