Tess of the Road
core novel 2018 Seraphina
Record
| First published | 2018 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.91 (10,734 ratings, collected 2026-08-19) |
| Page count | 544 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781101931318 |
| Internal chronology | 4 |
Synopsis
Seraphina's younger half-sister Tess, having grown up in her celebrated sister's shadow and disgraced by a scandal that has closed off most respectable paths for her future, flees her restrictive family life by disguising herself as a man and setting out on the open road. Accompanied by Pathka, a lizard-like quigutl companion with his own reasons for traveling, Tess treks across unfamiliar territory in pursuit of a half-mythical creature known as the World Serpent, a journey that offers her a chance to define herself apart from her family's expectations and the judgment that has followed her. Along the way, Tess must reckon honestly with the mistakes and losses of her past even as she discovers just how capable she can be once free of the constraints that shaped her upbringing.
Where it sits
- Universe: Seraphina
- Series: Seraphina core; position 4 of 5 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Rachel Hartman
Notes
- From the series record (Seraphina): Internal chronology (per the books' own settings, not publication order): Among Ghosts (2025) is set roughly a century before Seraphina (2012) in the same world of dragons-in-human-form and human/dragon diplomacy; Shadow Scale (2015) directly continues Seraphina; Tess of the Road (2018) and its own sequel In the Serpent's Wake (2022) are same-world companion novels following a different protagonist. Publication order differs from this internal order; both are recorded, following this project's standing convention for a settled, author-established chronology divergence.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series Seraphina: position 3 of 5: previous Shadow Scale (2015) · next In the Serpent's Wake (2022)
- Internal chronology, within Seraphina: position 4 of 5: previous Shadow Scale (2015) · next In the Serpent's Wake (2022)
Sources
- Wikipedia: Rachel Hartman
- Wikipedia: Seraphina (novel)
- Wikipedia: Shadow Scale
- Wikipedia: Tess of the Road
- Wikipedia: Among Ghosts
- Rating-platform listing: In the Serpent's Wake
← Seraphina dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.