I can think of one famous fantasy story that happens after the kids have recently left home, Lois McMaster Bujold’s Paladin of Souls. The protagonist, Ista, is the dowager mother of a very young queen. Ista is still in early middle-age, but her relatives suspect that she’s losing it. She weeps, she says cryptic things that make no sense, and she argues with the gods. So Ista finds herself hemmed in. For her own good, of course.
And one day, she decides to say “Screw it”, and goes striding out the castle door and off down the road. This does not improve her guardians’ opinion of her mental health, of course. But before Ista is rounded up, she meets dy Cabon, a priest of the fifth god, the Bastard. The Bastard has a fascinating divine portfolio, including orphans, crows, the LGBTQ community, justice when all human justice has failed, and “disasters out of season.”
And so Ista formulates a second plan to escape her daily life, ordering dy Cabon to prepare a religious pilgrimage. And much to dy Cabon’s surprise, he finds himself dogged by divine visions encouraging Ista’s voyage. You see, the Bastard has use for Ista. She is, after all, “a disaster out of season.” And if Ista curses the gods? There’s one god who considers that as holy as any other prayer.
Paladin of Souls won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards, and it was notoriously a favorite book of r/fantasy.
I can think of one famous fantasy story that happens after the kids have recently left home, Lois McMaster Bujold’s Paladin of Souls. The protagonist, Ista, is the dowager mother of a very young queen. Ista is still in early middle-age, but her relatives suspect that she’s losing it. She weeps, she says cryptic things that make no sense, and she argues with the gods. So Ista finds herself hemmed in. For her own good, of course.
And one day, she decides to say “Screw it”, and goes striding out the castle door and off down the road. This does not improve her guardians’ opinion of her mental health, of course. But before Ista is rounded up, she meets dy Cabon, a priest of the fifth god, the Bastard. The Bastard has a fascinating divine portfolio, including orphans, crows, the LGBTQ community, justice when all human justice has failed, and “disasters out of season.”
And so Ista formulates a second plan to escape her daily life, ordering dy Cabon to prepare a religious pilgrimage. And much to dy Cabon’s surprise, he finds himself dogged by divine visions encouraging Ista’s voyage. You see, the Bastard has use for Ista. She is, after all, “a disaster out of season.” And if Ista curses the gods? There’s one god who considers that as holy as any other prayer.
Paladin of Souls won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards, and it was notoriously a favorite book of r/fantasy.