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kareila_books2018-07-16 12:23 am
kareila) wrote in kareila_books2018-07-16 12:23 am
#18: Rachel Hartman, Tess of the Road (Seraphina #3)
This story begins about 4 years after the events of Shadow Scale ended. Although Seraphina is living happily ever after with the Queen and her Prince Consort, the fortunes of her father's family have not fared so well. Her father's license to practice law was revoked when his past sins became public knowledge, and he sank into debt with four other children to support.
Tess is the oldest of those four others, although she pretends to be slightly younger than her twin sister Jeanne, so that Jeanne may be married first. Tess is sly, imaginative, and thoroughly unsuited for the life her family wants for her. As the book opens, Tess and Jeanne are ladies in waiting at the Queen's court, and Tess has just arranged for Jeanne to be married to a handsome and wealthy son of a duke, which will help with her family's finances. Tess also hopes that with Jeanne's future settled, she will have the freedom to seek out a different future for herself, but her mother instead threatens to have her confined in a convent, until Jeanne timidly asks her to travel to her new husband's home as her companion and eventual governess to her children. Even that choice becomes closed to her, however, when she makes enemies of her new in-laws during the wedding festivities.
It rapidly becomes clear that this is a story about different aspects of womanhood. Tess reveals in fits and bursts that when she was a student of maybe 14, she was seduced and bore a child out of wedlock, ruining her future in the eyes of her family and sending her down a path of self-destructive behavior. Now Jeanne, the shyest of virgins, fears what will happen on her wedding night; her husband's cultural customs demand that the consummation of the marriage be observed by witnesses. Even Seraphina reveals to her family that to everyone's surprise, she too has conceived a child, and has retired to a secluded royal retreat to wait out the pregnancy and birth, in order to avoid scandal at court. Nor are we limited to the human experience - Tess discovers that her childhood best friend, a small dragon known as a quigutl, has metamorphed from female to male following a traumatic birth experience, although this metamorphosis seems to be a common occurrence with their species. Relationships with mothers, daughters, and sisters are explored and tested in turn.
Before long, Tess and her quigutl friend decide to leave everything they know behind and search for the mythical World Serpent. Their journey is ultimately one of healing and redemption as well as discovery.
Tess is the oldest of those four others, although she pretends to be slightly younger than her twin sister Jeanne, so that Jeanne may be married first. Tess is sly, imaginative, and thoroughly unsuited for the life her family wants for her. As the book opens, Tess and Jeanne are ladies in waiting at the Queen's court, and Tess has just arranged for Jeanne to be married to a handsome and wealthy son of a duke, which will help with her family's finances. Tess also hopes that with Jeanne's future settled, she will have the freedom to seek out a different future for herself, but her mother instead threatens to have her confined in a convent, until Jeanne timidly asks her to travel to her new husband's home as her companion and eventual governess to her children. Even that choice becomes closed to her, however, when she makes enemies of her new in-laws during the wedding festivities.
It rapidly becomes clear that this is a story about different aspects of womanhood. Tess reveals in fits and bursts that when she was a student of maybe 14, she was seduced and bore a child out of wedlock, ruining her future in the eyes of her family and sending her down a path of self-destructive behavior. Now Jeanne, the shyest of virgins, fears what will happen on her wedding night; her husband's cultural customs demand that the consummation of the marriage be observed by witnesses. Even Seraphina reveals to her family that to everyone's surprise, she too has conceived a child, and has retired to a secluded royal retreat to wait out the pregnancy and birth, in order to avoid scandal at court. Nor are we limited to the human experience - Tess discovers that her childhood best friend, a small dragon known as a quigutl, has metamorphed from female to male following a traumatic birth experience, although this metamorphosis seems to be a common occurrence with their species. Relationships with mothers, daughters, and sisters are explored and tested in turn.
Before long, Tess and her quigutl friend decide to leave everything they know behind and search for the mythical World Serpent. Their journey is ultimately one of healing and redemption as well as discovery.