In the Serpent’s Wake

Rachel Hartman
Publisher: Penguin Teen Canada

Book Description

Tess has a mission from the Queen: sail across the oceans to the bottom of the world and prevent a war. Unbeknownst to the Queen, Tess also intends to find the last World Serpent — a once-mythical creature with the magical ability to heal her best friend Pathka from a life-threatening injury. Tess never was one to follow the rules and this self-assigned mission feels like her duty, her calling, her destiny.

Destiny has other ideas.

When someone from Tess’s past makes a surprise return, old wounds are cracked open, throwing her mission — and both the Queen’s and Tess’s personal agendas — into complete disarray. What’s more, Tess’s personal pain is intertwined with a history greater than her own and the mending of it threatens the delicate balance of the entire Southlands. Tess was sent on this journey to prevent a war, but she may be starting one of her own.

Author Bio

Rachel was born in Kentucky, but has lived a variety of places including Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, England, and Japan. She has a BA in Comparative Literature, although she insists it should have been a BS because her undergraduate thesis was called “Paradox and Parody in Don Quixote and the satires of Lucian.” She eschewed graduate school in favor of drawing comic books. She now lives in Vancouver, BC, with her family, their whippet, and a talking frog and salamander.

Rachel Hartman is the recipient of the 2013 William C. Morris YA Debut Award which honors a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens and celebrating impressive new voices in young adult literature.