I brought with me a book trilogy that I had promised to lend to my 12 year old nephew- the Westmark series by Lloyd Alexander. Several years ago I had loaned him the excellent Prydain Chronicles by the same author, a fantasy series based on Welsh legends. He loved them, and I'm planning to lend them to his younger brother as soon as I unpack the box that they're in. I found my Westmark books in one of the boxes I unpacked the night before last; an amazing number of the boxes I moved with were filled with books.
The Westmark trilogy is much darker than the Chronicles of Prydain, which is why I waited a few years before handing it over to the nephew. It takes place in a fictional kingdom but contains some striking similarities to the French Revolution/ Napoleonic era, so obviously darker and more violent. The three books in the series are: