Tess of the Road

Tess lives in Goredd, a medieval kingdom where women are expected to behave as ladies, men act as their protectors, and dragons can take whatever shape they like. She fits none of those roles. She talks when she should keep quiet, has wild ideas, and attracts trouble wherever she goes.

Then she does something so shameful that she cannot let herself think about it. The past will not stay buried, and her family decides the only place left for her is a nunnery.

On the day she is due to join the nuns, Tess picks another course. She cuts her hair, laces up her boots, and takes to the road. She is not fleeing so much as heading for something, though she cannot say what. To her the open road looks like a map to a life in which she might finally belong.

This is a fantasy novel about self-reliance and redemption, following one young woman as she travels. It is set in the Southlands, the same world as Seraphina, and takes place in that world after the events of that earlier book's setting was introduced.